
Class, L^i IBJ 

Book S2 ..^^ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT, 



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Olliarks »Uiam Buptv. il|. S., 2I2I. 1. 



WISDOM ANB WILL 
IN EDUCATION 



By 

CHARLES WILLIAM SUPER, Ph.D., LL.D. 

Ex-Presideni of the Ohio University 
and Professor of Greeks Ibidem ; Transla- 
tor of WeiVs Order of Words ; Author 
of a History of the German Language, 
Between Heathenism and Christianity^ etc. 



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Harrisburg, Pa. 
R. I,. MYERS & CO., Publishers 

1903 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

FEB m 10.03. 

Copyrighi Entry 

CLASS Ct^ XXc. No. 

COPY B. ' 



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Copjrright, 1902 

By R. ly. My^rs & Co,. 



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"If thou wilt mighty be, liee from the rage 
Of cruel will : and see that thou keep free 
From the foul yoke of sensual bondage : 

For though thine empire stretch to Indian sea, 
And for thy fear trembleth farthest Thule, 
If thy desire hath over thee the power, 
Subject then art thou and no govemour/* 

Wyat 

"For when was public virtue to be found 
When private was not? Can he love the whole 
Who loves no part? He be a nation's friend 
Who is, in truth, the friend of no man there ?" 

Cowper. 

"And more than common strength and skill 

Must ye difeplay ; 

If you would give the better will 

Its lawful sway/' 

Wordsworth, 



(5) 



To MY COLLEAGUES BOTH OF THE GENTLEB AND THE STESNEB SEX . 
WHO DtJEING THE PAST YEARS WEEE ASSOOIATEa) WITH ME IN THE 
INTERNAL MANAGEMENT OF 'BHE OhIO UNIVERSITY, WHO SHARED 
WITH ME THE PLEASURES AND THE PAINS, THE PENALTIES AND THE 
PL.VUDITS OF COLLEGE LIFE, AND BUT FOB WHOSE KINDLY PARTICIPA- 
TION IN THE MANIFOLD DUTIES OF A LABORIOUS POSITION THERE 
WOULD HAVE REMAINED TO ME NO TIME FOR SYSTEMATIC LITERARY 
WORK, THESE STUDIES ABE GRATEFULLY DEDICATED BY THE 

AUTHOB. 



CONTENTS. 

Page 

Iktroduction, 9 

Aspects of Ancient Greek Education, 25 

Aspects of Ancient Greek Ethics, 54 

Knowledge and Morality, 74 

Rkason and Sentiment as Factors in Social ProgreSwS, ... 86 
Kesponsibility, , 112 

PATfllOTISM AND PARTISANSHIP, 130 

Spiritual Verities, 151 

Self-renunciation, 171 

Fiction as a Factor in Education, I RO 

Heredity and Environment, , 21S 

National Education, 238 

The Relation op Private to Public Morality, 260 



(7) 



mTKODUCTION. 

"We can not get along with the women; but'^ (after a 
pause) "I suppose we can not get along without them/' 
This remark was made to me many years ago by a fellow 
teacher after a somewhat stormy altercation with one of 
his female patrons who had been endeavoring to instruct 
him in the rights and privileges of her children. It has 
often seemed to me since, when I have recalled the quota- 
tion, that with a slight change it is applicable to our pres- 
ent social conditions. Everybody realizes that we can 
not get along without education ; yet many intelligent per- 
sons are reiterating that education is not accomplishing 
what may be justly expected of it. If the putting in 
practice of a rational system of instruction were entirely in 
the hands of teachers we should doubtless see a rapid 
advance toward so desirable a goal. But in democratic 
communities where almost everybody has something to 
say about what is to be done and how it is to be done, 
especially in matters that concern or are supposed to con- 
cern every man, woman and child, progress in popular edu- 
cation can, in the nature of the case, move forward no 
faster than progress in general enlightenment. 

Notwithstanding the title of the book the contents are 
for the most part of a sociological rather than of an edu- 
cational character. They deal with man in his collective 

(9) 



10 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION, 

capacity more than with him as an individual. The body 
politic does not consist of a sum total obtained by adding 
together a number of homogeneous units like a sum in 
arithmetic. It is well known that a howling mob is often 
made up of individually sane men. Man in his collective 
capacity is more easily moved by an appeal to his good or 
his evil impulses than when alone. 

While it is true that we have no guide for the future 
but the experience of the past and that men have remained 
substantially unchanged within the historic period, the 
same conditions are never exactly duplicated and conduct 
must be constantly readjusted to new circumstances as they 
arise. If, therefore, it is wisely regulated it requires care- 
ful thought. There are, however, certain fundamental 
rules of action that are as invariable in their operation and 
effects as any law of nature, and the fundamental prob- 
lem of scientific pedagogy is how to stimulate the self- 
hood or the self-activity of the individual so that he will 
always shape his course in conformity to these laws. 

It is the business of the sociologist and the psychologist 
to investigate, to define and to formulate the forces, both 
external and internal, that make one people or one age 
different from another ; that of the educationist to put 
into operation the agencies that will bring about the re- 
sults he wishes to produce. It is to be feared that herein 
will be found the chief shortcoming of the great body of 
teachers. They regard each subject that enters into the 
curriculum as an end in itself, whereas it ought to be sub- 
sidiary to the remoter object of preparing the rising genera- 
tion for the performance of those duties that devolve upon 
it in the complex relations of institutional life. 

The history of education is in the main the history of 
civilization ; oi; we may transpose our terms and say that 



INTRODUCTION. 11 

the history of civilization is chiefly the history of education. 
Every nation that has had any claim to be considered en- 
lightened has bestowed a large share of its best thought on 
the training of the young; and almost every philosopher, 
from Socrates to Herbert Spencer, has had more or less to 
say on the subject. Every progressive people that has ap- 
peared on the scene of history has had some sort of a sys- 
tem of national education, however unsystematic it may 
have been; and the rate of its advancement may generally 
be measured by the degree of intelligent attention the prob- 
lem received. As long as the instruction of the young was 
based on nature and had due regard to institutional life 
each generation became wiser than its predecessor. Wlien 
this ceased to be the case and mere dogma was substituted, 
progress ceased. For nearly a thousand years Europe was 
virtually at a standstill because its best intellects were 
more intent on finding their own views in the works of 
the ancient Greeks and Eomans than in interrogating na- 
ture at first hand. The best thoughts which the Greek 
philosophers had left on record were either not understood 
or not heeded. 

After all, progress is relative; we see in the course of 
events one people at one time, another at another time, 
taking its place at the head of the procession that marches 
before the mind's eye of the student of the past from the 
earliest times to the present. 

Every system of education to be intrinsically valuable 
rnust have regard to the past and look to the future ; it must 
take into account man both as an individual and man as 
a member of the community. In so far as the historic 
systems have failed it has been because they neglected to 
take into due account in practice one or both of these fac- 
tors. Too much stress has alwavs been laid on the na- 



12 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

tional or local element and not enough on the cosmopolitan. 
Each nation, it is true, must, in virtue of its situation and 
to some extent by reason of its history and traditions, move 
toward the goal to be reached by a somewhat different 
route, but the goal is the same for all. Truth is unvarying 
in all ages and countries, and will continue so to the end 
of time. It is a sad fact that the governments of the 
world have so often repeated the same blunders, instead 
of profiting by the experience of others. Some, even of 
the States of our Union have at times tried to accomplish 
by legislation what the attempts of others in the same 
direction ought to have shown them was impossible or at 
least imwise. 

It can not be too often or too vigorously called to the 
attention of our public that the school is not the only 
agency by which the youth are trained and their charac- 
ters moulded. The bench, the bar, the press, the pulpit, 
the medical profession, the family and public opinion are 
all potent educators. Is the preponderance of their influ- 
ence educating upward or downward? — ^this is the im- 
portant question. If the latter, be it ever so little, the re- 
sults will in time be serious. Are we not in danger of 
becoming so much occupied with the welfare of the Cubans, 
the Filipinos and with other more or less far-off projects 
that we overlook the threatened lowering of the ideals that 
should serve as beacon lights to those in power and au- 
thority? It is well to be generous; it is better to be judi- 
cious. If the good Samaritan had discovered that the man 
whom he was succoring was not without means and had 
subsequently succeeded in collecting a pretty large bill for 
services, he would probably be none the less regarded as a 
philanthropist, but his care of the wounded stranger would 
not have been transmitted to posterity as the deed of a 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

man who was actuated by purely altruistic motives. If 
the ideal of conduct as taught in our schools comes to be 
regarded as incompatible with what are subsequently con- 
sidered as the essentials of success in civic life their influ- 
ence will soon be overborne or made nugatory. Not only 
in our own country but in France and Germany are heard 
loud complaints that the educational system breaks down 
in a great measure when considered as an agency for build- 
ing strong and upright men. It is not charged that the 
teachers are at fault but that society is corrupting. 

Our courts can do more than any other agency to foster 
the love of justice and to engender popular confidence in 
the triumph of right. But if our lawyers are more willing 
to put forth their best efforts to compass the acquittal 
of rich criminals than to secure redress for the wronged, 
whether they can pay liberally for the service or not; if 
they attach more importance to purchased fidelity to an 
individual or a corporation than to their obligation to the 
community as a whole, we have just cause for alarm. Un- 
less public opinion is greatly at fault, the legal profession 
is chiefly responsible for the spirit of lawlessness that has 
so sadly debauched our civic life. If law-breakers are per- 
mitted to feel that they can generally trust to money or a 
perverted local sentiment to secure immunity from pun- 
ishment, it is of little use to teach the young so to regu- 
late their conduct that it will always square with the right. 
If the rich and influential are permitted to evade the laws, 
the poor will in the end come to believe that they are their 
oppressors rather than their protectors, and that their 
only hope lies in their subversion by violence, if need be. 
Such a course will, at least, not make their condition worse. 
We already hear it said that the morality of the schools is 
irreconcilable with the imperative demands of practical 



14 WISDOM AND V/ILL IN EDUCATION, 

life. If this belief becomes wide-spread and deep-rooted 
it will ruin our schools. It will be a sheer waste of time 
and effort to teach and to learn what is of no use; yea, 
worse than useless. 

What can we say of our press as an educator ? That much 
of our periodical literature is ethically indifferent no one 
will deny. It is intended solely to amuse or to help its 
readers to pass away time for which they find no better 
and no worse use. Perhaps no fault ought to be found 
with this. That a good deal of it is elevating no one can 
gainsay. On the other hand, much that appears in the 
daily and weekly press is positively debasing. Those who 
are responsible would probably protest against the im- 
peachment. Their plea is that they do not make men 
worse; that they only send to market wares that will sell, 
and if a certain portion of the public taste is corrupt it is 
no fault of theirs : they are merely doing business. There 
is probably not a large city in the United States but has 
one or more dailies or weeklies which always give a good 
deal of space to lynchings, rapes, murders, divorces, 
breaches of promise, etc., written up with horrible or sala- 
cious details and intended to gratify a morbid or a prurient 
appetite. These periodicals, which may be had for one, 
two, three and five cents an issue, are regularly or irregu- 
larly bought by persons who read little else. The purchas- 
ers will spend dollar after dollar in driblets who could not 
be induced to spend one-tenth of this sum for something 
that is elevating. The argument that such papers are 
printed for money is utterly fallacious before the forum of 
morals; for, by parity of reasoning, people ought to be fur- 
nished with whatever they are willing and able to pay for. 
A brutal murder or a spicy divorce case, the parties con- 
cerned in which had never before been heard of by any- 



INTRODUCTION, 15 

body but their nearest neighbors, fills column after column 
day after day ; an educational association or some other as- 
sembly with like aims, at which men and women of wide 
reputation discuss questions of the deepest significance, is 
put off with a few inches of space. 

How little can the professional teacher do toward reduc- 
ing the pernicious influence of such stuff to a minimum ! 
It is true only to a limited extent that what we put into 
our schools we shall afterward find in our institutional 
life. I once heard an old gentleman called upon to open 
a Sunday school with prayer. He refused with the remark 
that he paid his preacher to do his praying for him. With 
equal consistency, but with much less reason — for a man 
may lead an upright life who never prays in public — many 
parents expect teachers to lead their children to practice 
what they themselves do not practice. I knew a man who 
generally became profane when under excitement, but who 
never failed to punish his boys for profanity when their 
transgression came to his knowledge. This same man 
never lost an opportunity to preach the theoretical import- 
ance of fair and square dealing in all business transactions ; 
but he could not suppress the temptation to chuckle before 
his family over his shrewdness when he had got the advan- 
tage in a bargain. Is it any wonder than one of this man's 
sons, who was more astute and more unscrupulous than 
his brothers, cheated his father out of his property? All 
the family subsequently went to the bad, this son among 
the rest. The case would not be worth citing were it not 
more or less typical. What did all the moral influence of 
the school accomplish in the face of home teachings ? Ab- 
solutely nothing. If every man and every woman could be 
brought to see that they are factors in the moral life of 
the community, society would he regenerated in a few 



16 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

decades. Unless an increasingly large number can be made 
to realize that upon them depends the well-being of tha 
next generation, that generation will be the worse for their 
short-sightedness. In theory not many persons in any com- 
munity are inherently dishonest or untruthful, but many 
maintain that the current ethical ideal is too high for this 
practical and matter-of-fact world. They regulate their 
dealings according to a new commandment which they, 
have, perhaps, never formulated into a sentence, but which 
they nevertheless observe sacredly, or at least as sacredly as 
they observe anything, "Thou shalt not get found Out." 

It is a healthful sign that nearly all our periodicals of 
the better class are now giving attention to matters that 
not many years ago used to be regarded as of interest and 
importance to teachers only. 'We have herein the evidence 
of a wide-spread conviction that education means more 
than mere "schooling," and that the largest possible public 
must be enlisted in the work of fostering and creating 
a wholesome public opinion. 

I am neither a pessimist nor an alarmist; but I am un- 
able, or rather I have no desire, to close my eyes to the 
tendencies I see about me. It is much pleasanter to com- 
mend than to criticize, but it is far less wholesome. To 
belittle a danger neither removes it nor makes it less. It 
is well to recall often the weighty words of Lincoln's sec- 
ond inaugural : "I see in the near future a crisis arising 
which unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety 
of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have 
been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will 
follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor 
to prolons^ its reign by working upon the prejudices of the 
people until all the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and 
the Eepublic will be destroyed. I feel at this time more 



INTRODUCTION. 17 

anxious for my country than even in the midst of the war." 
The destruction of the Eepublic as a form of government 
is not necessarily the worst misfortune that could befall 
our posterity; for history abundantly proves that nominal 
republics may be the worst of tyrannies. But history also 
shows that a society may become so corrupt and effeminate 
that there is no cure for it except virtual extermination. 
Does such a fate await any of the great nations now ex- 
isting upon the face of the earth ? 

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, and unremitting 
industry the indispensable condition of progress. There 
must not only be the wisdom which is founded on a knowl- 
edge of what has been, but the will to transform it into 
action. While it is well to know what is, it is still better to 
laiow what ought to be and to strive for its realization. 
From the watch-tower of the present we may, if we will, 
behold by means of the powers which science puts into our 
hands the causes that led to the destruction of so much in 
the past that would seem to have been well worthy of 
preservation. Will the nations go on cycle after cycle try- 
ing to do that which the eternal decrees have over and over 
shown to be impossible ? Eighteousness and righteousness 
only exalteth a nation. It may become conspicuous by 
other means and for a time occupy a large place, but there 
will be no permanence in its prestige. If our age is on 
the whole better than any that has preceded it the condi- 
tions are due to the genuinely patriotic men and women 
who have not been wholly absorbed in the selfish quest for 
power and pelf, but who have devoted a part of their ener- 
gies to the public good. The hope of our country lies in 
the persistent activity of its moral forces. It will avail us 
nothing to solace ourselves with the reflection that because 
we have done fairly well hitherto — remarkably well, com- 



18 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

paratively — we shall continue to prosper. Every genera- 
tion needs to realize that it is the custodian of its successor; 
that it is in duty bound not only to transmit to posterity all 
the inheritance it has come into possession of, but also to 
increase it and to add to its value. The nation that is 
always "pointing with pride" to its past achievements is in 
serious danger of forgetting its duty to the present. Let 
not this be our folly and our fate. All the world admits 
that the Amierican people may have a glorious future be- 
fore them. They have their own history that is on the 
whole an honorable one, and that of the race, for their guid- 
ance like the rest of mankind ; they have also like them the 
priceless intellectual treasures so abundant everywhere and 
so easy of attainment in our day. But they have this in ad- 
dition that they are not shackled by the irrational tradi- 
tions that so generally warp the judgment, nor cramped in 
their development by financial burdens. By their position 
and resources they are secure against foreign wars; by the 
abundance and variety of their natural products they are 
only dependent upon the outside world so far as they care 
to be. If their career closes like that of so many powerful 
nations that have preceded them it will not be because it 
was their destiny but their desert. It will be because in- 
ternal corruption has weakened them and made them a 
prey to the disintegrating agencies that are sleeplessly vigi- 
lant for harm in every body politic. 

While we need not take in their bald literalness the lines 
of George Berkeley's poem beginning, 

"The muse, disgusted at an age and clime 
Barren of every glorious theme/' 

Yet we see more than a grain of truth in the conclusion. 



IWTRODUCTION. 19 

"Westward the course of empires takes its way ; 
The first four acts already past, 
A fifth shall close the drama with the day : 
Time's noblest offspring is the last." 

Every people has its heroes. They are usually regarded 
with a reverence that increases with their remoteness in 
time. Posterity endows them with all those qualities and 
excellencies and disinterested motives which it admires but 
looks for in vain among contemporaries. It is the exclu- 
sive privilege of Americans to be permitted to look back 
upon their history and to contemplate in the full blaze of 
its clearest light one name at least in which the reality em- 
bodies the ideal. Well might Eliza Cook pen lines like 
these : 

"Land of the West! though passing brief the record of 
thine age. 

Thou hast a name that darkens all on history's wdde page ! 

Let all the blasts of fame ring out— thine shall be loud- 
est far; 

Let others boast their satellites — thou hast the planet star. 

Thou hast a name whose characters of light shall ne'er 
depart, 

'Tis stamped upon the dullest brain and warms the cold- 
est heart; 

A war-cry fit for any land where Freedom's to be won ; 

Land of the West ! it stands alone — it is thy Washington !" 

Yet it would be unjust to others, notably to Abraham 
Lincoln, to say that he had less ability or was a less disin- 
terested patriot than his illustrious predecessor. 

It can not be too often or too insistently called to the at- 
tention of the young that patriotism does not consist wholly 



20 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

or even chiefly in the display of bravery on the field of 
battle, — an opportunity that comes to but few — ^but in per- 
forming day by day those civic duties that are the privilege 
and ought to be the pride of every lover of his country and 
his race. 

Few persons are interested in the virtues in the abstract : 
all are attracted and many inspired by them when incor- 
porated in flesh and blood and exhibited in activity. It is 
a great moral and pedagogical advantage to have such char- 
acters to place before the youth of our land for their en- 
couragement and imitation. The privilege can not be over- 
estimated and ought to be assiduously improved. If we 
would maintain the prestige among the nations of the 
earth that has so unexpectedly fallen to us within the last 
few years we must see to it that ow: intellectual and moral 
progress not only keeps pace with our political power but 
outstrips it. Our destiny will be determined by the man- 
ner in which we perform our duty. 

It has seemed to me, as a serious student of ethnological 
psychology and its outward expression in the development 
of institutions to be not altogether superfluous to collect 
the following papers into a book. The private soldier can 
justify the recital of his uneventful experiences with the 
plea that though unimportant they are not quite paralleled 
by those of the commanr^er-in-chief. No two persons can see 
a thing from exactly the same point of view ; but if their 
views be founded on truth there will be a substantial agree- 
ment, no matter how large the number of observers. No 
claim is made to originality. It has, however, occurred to 
me and to others who have seen or heard these papers and 
addresses that if collected into a volume they might here 
and there find a reader who could get from it a few ideas 
that he had not come upon eleswhere. Some of them have 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

already appeared in print, but all have been rewritten and 
are substantially new. 

A few illustrations have been repeated and attention 
called more than once to the same historic period. It has 
seemed to me that they have been appropriately used in 
each case, nor is the point of view exactly the same, and I 
saw no reason for expunging the apparent repetition. If 
any person enters upon the perusal of this volume with the 
expectation of finding in it profound thoughts and subtle 
reasoning he is doomed to disappointment. Its contents 
are not the work of a profound thinker: nor are they in- 
tended for those who go "to the bottom of things." They 
are rather the studies of one who believes that men need to 
be reminded far more than they need to be instructed; 
of one who has long held the conviction that the highest 
attribute of mankind is the capacity to learn and that the 
noblest quality of the individual is the willingness to learn. 
Is it too much to hope that they will at least furnish a 
little stimulus to reflection? 

Neither are the papers wholly consistent with each other. 
Consistency may be as foolish as inconsistency. They re- 
flect to some extent the mood of mind in which they were 
prepared and the varying points of view from which the 
same subject, or closely allied subjects, were studied. All 
are intended to be suggestive rather than conclusive. 

Moreover, to state plainly what has already been said by 
implication, they have not been prepared especially for 
teachers. I repeat that popular education is by no means 
the exclusive affair of teachers ; it is rather the affair of the 
whole body politic, of which teachers are the most import- 
ant part, indeed, but other classes have their responsibilities 
as well. Teachers ought to lead, and to lead so wisely 
that the rest of the community will be glad to follow. 



22 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

When we are treating of those agencies that lead to 
the accumulation of wealth and the exploitation of the ma- 
terial resources of the earth we are justified in using 
strong terms. In this respect our age has far outstripped 
all that have preceded it. On the other hand, we can not 
shut our eyes and our minds to the visions of poverty and 
distress that meet us on every hand ; while in the spiritual 
realm we are on the whole far poorer than were our fathers 
and grandfathers. To affirm that powerful disintegrating 
agencies are at work among us, as they are in every civil- 
ized state, is not to deny the cogency of many conserving 
forces. To assert that our modem educational systems 
still leave much to be desired is not equivalent to denying 
that they are wholly or even largely failures. If they 
were doing all that may be expected of them we should 
not see so many of our best minds engaged in studying 
and suggesting how they may be improved. It is a fatal 
sign when ind'viduals and peoples are so well satisfied 
with themselves that they see no need of change and have 
no desire for it. Judicious criticism is not grumbling, and 
fault-mending is not fault-finding. Yet nobody is the 
better for being told that things are amiss if it is not also 
suggested to Iiim how they may be righted, or if the critic 
is himself unwilling to take a hand in the work of im- 
provement. 

"The smallest effort is not lost ; 
Each wavelet on the ocean toss'd 
Aids in the ebb tide or the flow; 
Each raindrop makes some floweret blow ; 
Each struggle lessens human woe.'' 

Tt is a sociological quite as much as it is a spiritual 
truth that "none of us liveth to himself and none dieth to 



INTRODUCTION. 23 

himself/' Society is not in any of its stages a work of art 
that has come complete and finished from the hand of the 
master. Neither is it to be compared to an immature 
plant or animal that needs but to be placed in a favorable 
environment in order that it may attain its full develop- 
ment. It is a unique entity. While always imperfect, it 
may be brought continually nearer to an ideal perfection. 
It is an organism composed of an infinity of self-conscious 
but not self-constituted units. The rapidity with which 
it approaches perfection will be determined by the clear- 
ness with which its units apprehend the goal before them 
and the effort with which they strive to attain it. In other 
words, the progress of society will always be regulated by 
the wisdom with which the end to be attained is appre- 
hended by those who constitute society and the will that is 
exerted toward its attainment. A strenuous life is good ; a 
purposeful life is better, C, W. S. 

Athens, Ohio, September the twelfth, 1903. 



ASPECTS OF ANCIENT GEEEK EDUCATION. 

Ever since the revival of learning there has been manifest 
in all parts of the civilized world a great deal of interest in 
the educational agencies of the ancient Greeks. Not only 
have many scholars been led by a scientific curiosity to as- 
certain what could be learned about the internal affairs of so 
remarkable a people, but the larger public has to a greater 
or less degree participated in the inquiry or its results. 
Besides, there has also been a systematic and persistent 
effort to find out, so far as this was possible, to what extent 
the intense intellectual activity of the fifth century B. C. 
was due to agencies outside of Greece, and how far it 
was a native product of Greek genius. Historians have 
also sought to discover to what degree the intellectual de- 
velopment of this era was fostered of set purpose by the 
leaders of public opinion. Our own times have called 
into existence a large number of special works on educa- 
tion in ancient Greece, from the bulky volumes of Gras- 
berger to the brief monographs whose name is legion. I 
am not aware, however, that Greek civilization was studied 
from the exclusively pedagogical point of view until the 
appearance of Cramer's two-volume work, entitled Ge- 

SCHICHTE DEE ErZIEHUNG UND DES UnTEREICHTS IM 

Alteethum^ 1832-4; though Professor Jacobs and others 
had written a good deal intended to throw light on certain 
phases of the general subject. 

(25) 



26 



WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 



For the last four or five centuries the Greeks have been 
our schoolmasters, as they were of the Komans of the 
older time, and the inquiry is certainly pertinent: Who 
were the schoolmasters of the Greeks? The search after 
the mysterious influence that made them a unique people 
is like the quest after many of the still undiscovered secrets 
of nature. We can describe results and set forth prox- 
imate causes, but there always remains a residuum that 
eludes our closest scrutiny. National characteristics are 
something for which no adequate explanation has yet 
been found. Anthropological and ethnological psychology 
is a historical, not a mathematical science; its data cannot 
be used for predicting the future. The adept can ex- 
hibit the How of many phenomena, not the Why. A na- 
tion's history is, no doubt, in a large measure, the result- 
ant of the physical conditions in which it lives, but not 
wholly. The same soil and the same atmosphere have fre- 
quently nourished, and still nourish, nations of widely 
different mental characteristics. So, too, national traits 
often change — slowly, it is true — where physical condi- 
tions vary but little, if at all. Sometimes the great think- 
ers of a nation are the acme and culmination of its psychic 
forces ; they are only primi inter pares. This is true of the 
age of Pericles, of Augustus, of Elizabeth, of Louis XIV. 
Sometimes they stand out like intellectual and spiritual 
monuments amid the general abasement or indifference 
which serve only to show that the spirit of their country- 
men is not wholly extinct. Such was the age of Milton in 
his almost solitary grandeur, and in a less degree of Goethe 
and Schiller. The coryphaei of Italian literature form, for 
the most part, a small and hapless procession as they pass 
before our mind's eye ; and some of the brightest intellects 
of ancient Greece seemed at times to be oppressed with the 



ASPECTS OF ANCIENT GREEK EDUCATION. 27 

feeling of their loneliness. Whose was the fault I do not 
say: I only speak of the fact. 

The progress of a people or a nation may be measured 
by its system of instruction; and as the people of the 
nineteenth century are taking an unprecedented interest in 
all that relates to popular education, there has been a grow- 
ing desire to look more carefully into Greek pedagogy in 
order to ascertain, if possible, whether it contains anything 
of stimulus or warning for our times. Probably no one 
familiar with the facts would deny that the audiences that 
listened to the speeches of Pericles, or the coteries that 
gathered about Socrates, or took sides in the bitter for- 
ensic contests between Demosthenes and Aeschines, were 
the most intelligent ever assembled for a like purpose. 

Nevertheless, the society they represented had in it the 
seeds of decay that soon developed into vigorous life and 
destroyed the organism in which they had planted them- 
selves. In our day those to whom is entrusted the instruc- 
tion of the rising generation are held to be largely re- 
sponsible for its morals and its patriotism. Does a like 
responsibility rest upon the teachers of the ancient Greeks ? 
Did these enlightened commonwealths fail into political 
disintegration because their schoolmasters were faithless 
to their trust, or fail through shortsightedness to point 
out to the rising generation the way of safety ? Or did 
misfortune come upon all because no such state-constituted 
^lardians existed whose duty and privilege it was to hold 
up persistently the true aim of life ? The answer, at least 
in part, is that no state of Greece had a system of educa- 
tion, as the term is now understood; that the teaching of 
the sophists was well calculated to accentuate the inherent 
selfishness of the Greeks, and that the Greeks were cursed 
with certain fundamental vices which probably no system of 



28 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

education could have wholly neutralized. At any rate^ 
they are quite as conspicuous to-day as they were at any 
time in the past. 

The student of the history of education^ beginning with 
the remotest times, can hardly avoid the conviction that 
the men who have made the deepest impression upon the 
life and thought of the world are the product of times 
when the state did but little for the enlightenment of the 
masses. There may be little or no connection between the 
two conditions, but we constantly find them existing side by 
side. In Athens, the era in which lived Socrates and 
Plato, Aristotle and Demosthenes is a conspicuous exam- 
ple Few men of antiquity have so profoimdly influenced 
the thoughts of the world, beginning almost from the day 
of his death, as Cicero, yet he, in no sense,- owed his edu- 
cation to the laws under which he lived ; neither did Caesar, 
nor Horace, nor Virgil. Many of the countries of mod- 
ern Europe have had their universities for four or five 
centuries, but in most cases their conservatism has been so 
pronounced that they afforded but little stimulus or scope 
for independent investigation. Some of them have 
not yet been aroused out of their mediaeval sleep, while 
others were stirred from their lethargy by intellectual 
forces which were created outside of the sphere of their in- 
fluence and against which bars and bolts were powerless. 
We are almost forced to the conclusion that there is no 
necessary connection between a nation's greatness and its 
educational system, nor even between the former and the 
great men who are born upon its soil. If, therefore, wo 
study systems of instruction with the hope of finding there- 
in that which will show us how a nation becomes great, we 
shall almost invariably be disappointed. They do not make 
great men. They have chiefly a historical, rarely, if ever, a 



ASPECTS OF ANCIENT GREEK EDUCATION. 29 

practical value. Much as there may be in the intellectual 
productions of great men — Socrates, for example, has fur- 
nished food for the mental digestion of millions of think- 
ing people — there is little apparently in the age in which 
he lived to show that he was its natural outcome, though 
there is no doubt that if he had lived amidst a different en- 
vironment his activity would have been directed in a differ- 
ent channel. Men of his type can not be called jnto exist- 
ence at will. There is much truth in the statement that a 
nation's history is' a biography of its great men. In the 
last analysis thought rules the world more than most per- 
sons are willing to believe. The truth, when steadfastly and 
disinterestedly proclaimed, is certain of a wider recogni- 
tion than the bounds of a nation or the limits of an age. 
Why is the Greek education that produced the great men 
of the fifth and fourth centuries before Christ of more in- 
terest to us than that in which were trained Shakespeare 
and Milton, or Lessing and his contemporaries? Because 
all these fed more or less on the intellectual product of the 
ancient soil. In a sense, then, a study of Greek pedagogy 
is an examination of the sources from which the later com- 
ers drew their intellectual inspiration more or less directly. 
But they used these materials only as genius and talent 
uses such materials— as stimulus. 

It is not the purpose of the present paper to furnish a 
history of Greek education. It is too brief for that. On 
the other hand, it is impossible in our day to write more 
than a mere sketch, for the reason that the extant ma- 
terials are exceedingly scanty. There is only room here to 
record a few fairly well authenticated facts and to set forth 
certain inferences that have occurred to the writer during 
the quarter of a century that he has studied the subject. 
The scantiness of the material that has come down to us is 



30 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

sufficient evidence that the Greek public did not attach the 
importance to national education that is attached to it by 
the leading nations of the day. If the large cities of 
Europe or America were to be swept from the face of the 
earth as completely as those of ancient Greece, there is 
hardly one among the ruins of which would not be found 
unmistakable evidence that it had been the seat of great 
educational institutions. But the ruins of Greek cities tell 
us little of education. There were no buildings correspond- 
ing to our colleges and universities, as no Greek state seri- 
ously concerned itself for the instruction of its youth beyond 
the mere rudiments of knowledge. It is greatly to be re- 
gretted that we have so little definite information about 
Greek elementary education. Many writers have more or 
less to say upon education, but they tell us rather what it 
ought to be than what it was. While, therefore, it is com- 
paratively easy to write a history of Greek educational the- 
ories, it is impossible to say much about Greek educational 
practice without feeling that a great deal of what we say is 
possibly erroneous. We know almost nothing of Greek 
school-rooms ; the preparation required of teachers, though 
of their fitness they were probably themselves the sole judges ;, 
of the books and other appurtenances used, such as maps, 
globes, slates, etc. In short, on the external appliances for 
teaching, that are now considered well nigh indispensable, 
we have only the most meager information. It is prob- 
able that these things played a very subordinate part in the 
work of instruction and that the stress was laid almost 
wholly upon purely mental labor. Need we be surprised 
because such great results were produced by such meager 
means ? Or is it not rather the great vice of modern peda- 
gogy that it helps the pupil too much? 



ASPECTS OF ANCIENT GREEK EDUCATION. 31 

A leading trait of the Greeks, especially of the lonians, 
was the desire to know. Paul tells us that even in his 
time many of them were constantly on the alert to find out 
some new thing. This desire in its inception is mere idle 
curiosity, but it is the foundation of scientific inquiry. 
From it sprang the fruitful growth of Greek, and indeed 
of all philosophy. It impressed the Apostle, because to 
his Oriental mind it was something almost incomprehensi- 
ble. In the Homeric Poems but faint traces of it are mani- 
fest, and it was never very conspicuous among the Dorians, 
])ut reached its fullest development among the Athenians. 
To what it led is well known. It is related of many Greeks 
that they visited the older countries of the East in order 
to observe and study their institutions and their natural 
productions. Surprise has often been expressed, and it is 
certainly a matter of regret, that these quick-witted trav- 
elers took so little note of the speech of the people they vis- 
ited. But there is reason for this. Language was regarded 
by them as a mere external manifestation of what was in 
the human mind. In itself it had to the Greek no intrin- 
sic value. His own language was manifestly superior as 
an organ of expression to any with which he came in con- 
tact. If he could discover the underlying thought, of 
which speech was only the medium of communication, he 
was content. He concerned himself with foreign lan- 
guages only so far as they had a practical value, and re- 
garded them of no further importance, because they re- 
vealed no radical differences in the human mind. The case 
was otherwise when there was a question of foreign institu- 
tions and the history of foreign countries. Here was some- 
thing radically unlike anything he could find at home. 

The Greeks attached a high value to training both 
physical and intellectual. Every Greek city had its build- 



32 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

ings and grounds suitably furnished for gymnastic exer- 
cises, and to be unfamiliar with such exercises was regarded 
as the mark of a slave or a barbarian. In fact, the state 
concerned itself far more with such training than with 
training of the mind. But here, too, the principle was be- 
lieved to be of chief importance. Greek writers have so 
much to say in disparagement of extensive information 
when acquired at the expense of thorough mental training, 
that this thought must have had a firm basis in public 
opinion. Plato regarded as the important principles of 
education, the correlation of all knowledge, the recognition 
of the unity of all sciences, the desire to pursue truth to 
its discovery, and the determination not to stop short of 
this goal. From this point of view Greek education was 
strictly rational and philosophical. It did not multiply 
issues. Indeed, it could scarcely have done so, because 
the intellectual product available for pedagogical purposes 
was limited in amount. Its aim was not to make profes- 
sional men, but intelligent citizens. In this it served its 
purpose admirably. 

How simple the most liberal course of study was to the 
time of Aristotle, when Greece was already in its decline! 
There was but little history in the modern sense of the 
term, and hardly any natural or physical science. Tlie 
speculations of philosophers, though wonderfully shrewd 
in many cases, were hardly more than mere guesses. They 
thought deeply, and observed with some care, but their ob- 
servation lacked accuracy for want of suitable instruments. 
There was no study of geography and no scientific study 
of music. It was made up chiefly of literature, practical 
politics, and some mathematics. We get a fairly accurate 
notion of what it must have been by subtracting what we 
Iniow that it could not have included. 



ASPECTS OF ANCIENT GREEK EDUCATION. 83 

■"Vi^iat we see taking place in the case of individuals in 
our own day has taken place from time immemorial in the 
history of nations, and the Greeks were no exception. The 
parent who, by natural ability, has succeeded in acquir- 
ing a larger amount of knowledge than his fellows, soon 
recognizes the superiority that his attainments give him, 
and desires the same advantages for his children. He 
then endeavors by artificial helps, applied ii\ the form of 
more or less systematic instruction, to transmit to them 
the benefit of his acquired knowledge and experience. 
When a considerable number of persons have reached the 
recognition of this advantage they strive to establish na- 
tional systems of instruction. The Greeks, owing to their 
pre-eminent natural genius, fostered by advantages of soil 
and climate, unconsciously produced the Homeric Poems. 
Later generations recognized their value as a means of 
culture, and made them the basis of a national system of 
instruction. This literature was, however, spontaneous 
and unconscious, as indeed is all the earliest literature of 
every nation. But the product of the Greek muse was far 
superior to everything else of the kind. That it came into 
existence by a sort of inspiration was a fact well recognized 
by the Greeks themselves when they began to reflect upon it 
and study it. They saw that it could not be called forth 
at will, though many of them tried to do this by a scrupu- 
lous observance of a set of rules instinctively followel by 
the creators of Greek literature. 

Sometimes a nation recognizes the superior value of a 
foreign literary product to anything of its own creation 
and makes an imported article the basis of its national in- 
struction. The Romans followed this course and their 
earliest text-books were translations of the Homeric Poems. 
Somewhat similarly the school-books used in this country 

3 



34 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

until a comparatively recent period were more or less close 
imitations of those in use in the mother country. In time, 
however, the Eomans gradually laid aside their translations 
from the Greek and brought into general use the writings 
of native authors. And it may be added, we are having a 
like experience with the literature of Great Britain. 

It has been stated above that Greek writers often speak 
of the evil effects producel upon the mind by the effort to 
know many things. This judgment is not only endorsed 
by the universal testimony of mankind, but by the exper- 
ience of the Greeks themselves. Wlien we come to the Al- 
exandrian period, pre-eminently an encyclopedic age, we 
find how greatly the Greek intellect has deteriorated. 
There are few great thinkers, and no great men except auto- 
cratic political leaders. The Greek literature of this period 
is vastly inferior to that which preceded it. We have en- 
tered upon an era of great scholars who are often mere 
pedants — men sadly lacking in the power of original 
thought. Yet it was this highly artificial product that was 
chiefly admired by the Eomans. We know more of it from 
its image reflected through Koman minds than we do 
directly. 

Passing thence to Rome we are confronted with what 
may well be regarded as a peculiar condition of things. 
The Roman people manifested almost no interest in intel- 
lectual pursuits. The meager education they imparted to 
their youth was based on a foreign product. The lack of 
imagination is strikingly manifested in Roman mythology. 
Yet they exhibited a genius for government that is with- 
out a parallel in the history of the world, and created, with- 
out a model, a body of laws that subsequently became the 
basis of all European legal systems. In like manner the 
English people, at least before the present century, con- 



ASPECTS OF ANCIENT GREEK EDUCATION. 35 

tributed but little to the original thought of the world, yet 
they have known how to extend their empire around the 
globe. Their educational system, until recently, took but 
little account of the common people, while that intended 
for the higher classes was founded on the intellectual cre- 
ations of Greece, more or less modified by Eoman ideas. 
Their legal system is likewise more original than any other 
now obtaining in Europe. It should be observed, however, 
that the comparative isolation of England was in some 
measure due to her insular position. Her history presents 
some striking points of comparison with that of Eome, so 
far as her experience with tributary nations is concerned*, 
but England has rarely been guilty of exploiting her col- 
onies for the benefit of the mother country. Rome did 
this almost systematically. 

If the aim and purpose of popular education is to train 
the young for intelligent action in institutional life, that 
of the Greeks was in a large measure a failure. As a po- 
litical factor in the history of the world they accomplished 
little during their independence, after the repulse of the 
Persians. They had no comprehension of the importance 
of a regular and orderly development in the growth and 
permanence of a state. Almost every man of large views 
among them felt constrained for reasons of personal safety 
to keep aloof from the political turmoil that was constantly 
seething about him. Narrow selfishness usually took the 
place of broad patriotism. No services, however brilliant, 
no sacrifices, however great, could protect a citizen from the 
vindictive whims of the populace. Too many men were 
ever ready to sacrifice the commonweal for personal aggran- 
dizement. The gold of the despised barbarian was al- 
ways welcome to those who sought for the nonce to get the 
better of a rival. In no country has political animosity 



36 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

cost so many lives compared with the whole number of citi- 
zens; no where did this vindictiveness profit any man or 
any party so little. When the conflict with Philip, and 
afterwards with Eome, threatened the independence of the 
different States and the liberties of Greece; when only a 
united effort could repel the invader, such a unity of effort 
could not be brought about. Two millenniums later, when 
the Greeks sought to shake off the Turkish yoke the event 
proved that they had learned nothing in the long interim. 
Had it not been for the intervention of foreign powers 
Greece would to-day be a province of the Turkish Empire. 

A most important influence was exerted in Greek educa- 
tion by the Sophists or "Masters," as Bergh calls them. 
Though only a passing phenomenon, they fill a large place 
in the intellectual history of Athens during the fifth pre- 
Christian century after the repulse of the Persians, for the 
accomplishment of which Athens had made the largest 
sacrifices. A new and wider horizon opened up before her 
young men. The traditional education was found to be 
too circumscribed to meet the new conditions. At the 
same time the pre-eminence of Athens attracted men from 
various parts of the Grecian world who came hither to 
^^make their fortune," as we say. The impressibility of 
the Ionic temperament, the eagerness with which all proposed 
innovations were listened to, and the readiness with which 
new enterprises were entered upon, especially by the Athen- 
ians exposed them to all sorts of influences, both good and 
bad. Besides, the democratic form of government which 
opened all public offices to shrewdness and a glib tongue, 
served as an attraction to ambitious spirits who were for 
any reason discontented with the conditions at home. Here 
there was a fertile field for the teachers of a new kind of 
eloquence ; for men who professed to be able to qualify their 



ASPECTS OF ANCIENT GREEK EDUCATION. 37 

pupils to talk equally well on opposite sides of the same 
question; for instructors who made little of facts but at- 
tached the greatest importance to words. Such professors 
were not only welcome to the champions of a democracy 
like the AtheniaUj but to a people like the Greeks, in whom 
the moral forces were always somewhat weak. The inher- 
ent centrifugal tendencies of the Greek political ideals was 
accentuated by the doctrine that made man the measure of 
all things, while conversely the doctrine found the more 
ready lodgment in minds naturally predisposed to receive 
it. Aristophanes, the arch-conservative, thus contrasts the 
old education with the new. The voice of the past, that of 
the "good old times," speaking to the youth, says, "Choose, 
with confidence, me, the better course, and you will learn- 
to hate the Agora, and to refrain from baths, and to be 
ashamed of what is disgraceful, and to be enraged if any 
one jeer at you, and to rise up from your seats before your 
seniors when they approach, and not to behave ill toward 
your parents, and to do nothing else that is base, because 
you are to form your mind in an image of modesty. You 
shall spend your time in the gymnastic schools, sleek and 
blooming; not chattering in the market-place rude jests, 
like the young of the present day ; nor dragged into court 
for a petty suit, greedy, pettifogging, knavish; but you 
shall descend to the Academy and run races beneath the 
sacred olives along with some modest compeer. If you do 
these things which I sa,j, and apply your mind to these, 
you will ever have a stout chest, a clear complexion, broad 
shoulders, a little tongue, large hips, little lewdness. But 
if you practice what the youths of the present day do, you 
will have in the first place a pallid complexion, small shoul- 
ders, a narrow chest, a large tongue, little hips, great lewd- 
ness, a long psephism ; and this innovator will persuade you 



38 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

to consider everything that is base to be honorable, and 
what is honorable to be base." After making all allowance 
for the license of the poet and the enthusiasm of a laudator 
temporis acti this quotation from the Clouds probably pre- 
sents a view of the case as it appeared to many Athenians 
toward the close of the fifth century B. C. 

While the activity of the Sophists was confined to a single 
century, the influence they exerted upon Greek education 
was ineffaceable. Moreover, we meet with teachers of this 
type at two or three periods during the first Christian 
centuries. While they differ from the older Sophists in 
minor points, they are their true spiritual descendants in 
the stress they lay on the ability to speak interestingly and 
persuasively on any topic, no matter how void of content. 

The study of the poets in the schools of ancient Greece 
seems to have been about as follows : Boys are first taught 
their letters at school, — for be it remembered that girls do 
not go to school — and as soon as they can read a little, the 
teacher places in their hands as they sit on benches, the 
works of good poets, which they are required to learn thor- 
oughly. How much of the teaching was oral we do not 
know, but some of it must have been from manuscript 
copies. "The purpose was not only to form the boy's lit- 
erary taste, or to give him the traditional lore; it was es- 
pecially a moral purpose, having regard to the precepts in 
the poets, and to the praises of great men of old, — *^in order 
that the boy may emulate their examples and may strive to 
become such as they.' " — Jebb. 

' So late as the close of the first century B. C. Homer still 
holds his place in the schools as a text-book for children. 
It should, however, be remarked that some of the ancient 
philosophers objected to this universal use of Homer on 
moral grounds, and with good reason; but, so far as we 



ASPECTS OF ANCIENT GREEK EDUCATION, 39 

know, their protests produced no effect. As usual, it was 
the status quo that so long held its ground against the ini- 
tiative. 

Here again our thoughts almost involuntarily turn to 
Italy and Germany, the home of music, poetry, painting 
and philosophy — countries until recently as badly governed 
as the states of ancient Greece. Only after centuries of 
internecine strife, disintegration, and the most wretched 
administration have these countries achieved a national 
unity, the permanence of which is by no means assured. 
Will their efficient educational system effect what the 
genius of the people aimed at in vain? It is not much 
wonder that practical people do not greatly concern them- 
selves about national education. The Greeks were not 
lacking in patriotism. Their orators are never weary of 
calling up the memory of the heroes of Marathon and Ther- 
mopylae, and their hearers never failed to manifest a justi- 
fiable pride in the glorious deeds of their ancestors. But 
they could not be aroused to emulation and to a willingness 
to make similar sacrifices when occasion called. 

Greek writers on education generally lay much strees on 
the importance of making the systems of instruction con- 
form to the existing constitution. Speaking broadly, this 
means that where the established form of government is 
aristocratic, the young should be taught to respect it, and 
where democratic it should be looked upon with the same 
feeling. Socrates, as is well known, went to the farthest 
extreme in his reverence for the laws of his country, and 
voluntarily sacrificed his life to an edict that he held to be 
clearly unjust. He felt, as few men have felt since his 
time, that for no possible excuse should a law be evaded. 
Though a great admirer of the institutions of his native 
city, he was keenly alive to the pernicious influence of 



40 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

* 
demagogues, a class of men who were ever ready to advo- 
cate any measure that promised to subserve their immediate 
ends. During his trial he tells his judges that he is di- 
vinely commissioned to act as a monitor to his countrymen, 
and that he dared not abridge his life by exposing it to the 
animosity of an opposing political party. 

Convinced as he was that virtue and knowledge were re- 
ciprocally interchangeable terms, he believed that all that 
was needed to make a man virtuous was to make him intel- 
ligent. The corollary to this belief was that the form of 
government under which men live was unimportant. On 
the other hand, the chief thinkers of the Socratic school 
were not fully in accord with their master on this point, 
and nearly all exhibit a preference for the aristocratic con- 
stitution of the Dorians. The fickle democracies of their 
times wrought a feeling of disgust in the minds of most 
thinking men who were not practical politicians, and they 
looked to a government in the hands of a small number of 
persons to guarantee the State against ever recurring inno- 
vations. We have in these opinions some pretty clear an- 
ticipations of compulsory education as advocated in recent 
years by the majority of educators. It was held that a 
strong government should early take the prospective citi- 
zen in hand and instruct him in the political duties that 
pertained to the sphere he was intended to fill. 

The ruinous effects of democratic government in Greece 
became, in the course of time painfully evident, yet it is 
not easy to see that, in the main, the aristocrats governed 
any better. Greece, indeed, found peace under the protec- 
tion of a strong power exerted from without, but it was 
at the expense of all that had made her a conspicuous place 
in the history of the world. Plainly, the price paid was 
much too high for the value of the commodity. 



ASPECTS OF ANCIENT GREEK EDUCATION. 41 

Many intelligent Greeks seem to have reached the same 
conclusion now held by not a few of our thinkers. Au 
enormous mass of matter issues from the press in our day 
designed to warn the public against the dangers to be appre- 
hended from an unenlightened democracy. The only rem- 
edy proposed is more intelligence for the masses. Our pan- 
acea is likewise a thorough system of instruction vigorously 
administered. In fact, the same view is generally held in 
Europe, and current history is a repetition on a large scale 
of the histor}^ of ancient Greece. The Germans expect to 
strengthen and perpetuate monarchy by a thorough and effi- 
cient system of public instruction ; the English and French 
look for the same results from the same cause under a re- 
gime in which democracy is constantly growing in power 
and influence. 

An important fact that should always be kept in mind in 
the study of Greek education is that even where it was not 
aristocratic it was always exclusive. It kept in view but a 
small portion of the actual population. The inhabitants of 
Attica, during the j^eriod here under discussion probably 
varied in number from 400,000 to 600,000. Of these from 
20,000 to 30,000 were citizens. The remainder were slaves, 
with a small number of resident aliens. 'Women were en- 
tirely excluded from the benefit of systematic intellectual 
training. All they learned related exclusively to domestic 
affairs. The few women who figure in Greek history were, 
at least so far as Athens is concerned, of the class whose 
reputation was questionable. There were not lacking evi- 
dences of dissatisfaction with this state of affairs, but it 
2)roduced no tangible results. 

Slavery was an institution so firmly established in the so- 
cial fabric of antiquity that we rarely meet with any who 
questioned its justice. Greek writers, almost without ex- 



42 WLWOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

ception^ looked upon it as founded in the nature of man. 
They held that many men are servile by nature and only 
fitted to be in subjection to others. Admitting this reason- 
ing to be correct, we are at a loss to see how they overlooked 
the fact that men often fell into slavery through no fault 
of their own. The almost inevitable fate of the vanquished 
in war was to be sold into servitude, a fate that bore heavi- 
est on women and children. These rarely had the oppor- 
tunity of choosing between death and bondage. The in- 
tense love of liberty that has always been a conspicuous trait 
of the Greek character makes it all the more remarkable 
that slavery should be regarded by them as the proper con- 
dition of many people, not excepting some that belonged 
to their own race. 

Note. — It ought, perhaps, to be said that the Stoics taught, at 
least indirectly, if not directly, the natural equality of all and 
the universal right to freedom. Paul doubtless had this doc- 
trine in mind in his speech on Mars Hill when he said that God 
had '"'made of one every nation of men for to dwell on all the face 
of the earth." But neither Christianity nor Stoicism exerted any 
marked influence on the status of the members of the body politic 
for many centuries, and therefore not on that of the slave. The 
early converts who were slaves, did not claim that their conver- 
sion gave them any title to freedom, and Christian masters did 
not feel called upon to manumit those in bondage to them. That 
in Christ "there is neither bond nor free" must not be understood 
as interfering with the social condition of those professing it any 
more than the same admission would have required the Southern 
white man to treat his blacks as his equals. The theory repre- 
sented an aspiration that had hardly a perceptible influence on the 
fact. In like manner the dictum that "God is no respecter of per- 
sons" was equally held by the latter Stoics and the Christians; but 
its practical effect hardly meant more than that the Christian 
master will treat his slave in a brotherly manner and the Chris- 
tian slave will serve his master faithfully. The early Christian 



ASPECTS OF ANCIENT GREEK EDUCATION. 43 

Freedom to do, at least within certain limits, whatever 
-one liked, was a right that was always ardentl}^ maintained 
by the Athenians. Thucydides lays great stress upon this 
trait of his countrymen in the well-known oration that he 
puts in the mouth of Pericles. The Spartans who gave up 
their lives at Thermopylae desired posterity to know that 
this deed of patriotism was done in obedience to the laws of 
their country. On the other hand, the Athenians exhibited 
equal bravery at Marathon and elsewhere because they rec- 
ognized that the liberty of all Greece was at stake. Theirs 
was a voluntary sacrifice for the good of their country, not 
mere obedience to law. It was a notable exhibition of in- 
dividual prowess rather than obedience to tradition. 

Nowhere was this love of liberty and the lack of it more 
strikingly shown than in the educational system of the two 
states. In Sparta the child became at birth, or even be- 
fore, the ward of the state. It was trained by the state 
and for the state exclusively. We are astonished at the 
overwhelming power of tradition. But as this training was 
almost entirely of a military character, it was of little value 
except in times of war. The arts of peace received no at- 
tention, and the consequences could not be otherwise than 
disastrous. Sparta, like Athens, fell a prey to the foreign 
conqueror, and left behind no memorials of her former 
greatness. But Athens, even in her ruins, is glorious. 

It is probable, however, that even in Athens the state, or 
a strong public sentiment, required the citizen to give his 



teachers were even more careful than the Stoics not to countenance 
anything that might cause them to fall under the suspicion of 
stirring up sedition. Their disciples seem to have been equally on 
their guard. It is worth noting, too, that under some of the 
Eoman emperors the Stoics, no less than the Christians, were per- 
secuted. 



44 WI8D0M AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

boys at least the rudiments of an education; but no more 
seems to have been required, and there is ample evidence on 
record that not all Athenians were intelligent. If a citi- 
zen neglected the education of his sons it was a matter that 
concerned only the parties in interest and nobody else. 
There were laws to regulate the management of schools, 
but apparently none compelling their establishment. 

The Greeks considered plenty of leisure as an indispens- 
able prerequisite to liberal culture. They could not con- 
ceive that a person who was compelled to labor with his 
hands might also be an earnest searcher after truth. The 
importance of liberal culture being conceded, it was argued 
that plenty of spare time was necessary for its acquisition, 
and that it could only be had by relegating to slaves those 
callings that were necessary to provide the means of liveli- 
hood for all. The question does not seem ever to have been 
seriously considered by any one whether it was possible so> 
to educate those who have to toil with their hands that they 
might find in their hours of relaxation the solace and en-^ 
joyment of a trained intellect. 

The treatment of slaves in Attica was exceptionally mild. 
All the Greeks were simple in their manner of life and 
their wants were easily supplied. !N'evertheless, the free citi- 
zen was expected to devote himself to philosophy and to 
politics, but not to a handicraft of any kind. The poorest 
were not without their slaves, whose duty it was to provide 
for their physical wants. It must not be inferred that be- 
cause leisure and literature were here found together, the 
one was the necessary corollary of the other. The people 
of our Southern States before the War of the Eebellion 
were not lacking in leisure. A social system existed not un- 
like that which prevailed in ancient Greece, yet the South 
produced neither artists, nor literary men, nor philosophers. 



ASPECTS OF ANCIENT GREEK EDUCATION. 45 

Even its politicians were as much of a failure as those of 
ancient Greece. The literary product of England did not 
come from the leisure class. The English nobility were 
often the patrons of literary men, but not themselves cre- 
ators of literature. From these facts it is again evident 
that when we study the ancient Greeks we are dealing, not 
with a peculiar condition, but with a unique people. 

When we are examining Greek education it is well to 
keep in mind the important part played in it by the social 
habits of the people. In time of peace it was customary 
for many of the citizens to meet together almost daily for 
purposes of literary and philosophical discussion. That ques- 
tions of this kind were not of interest to all is sufficiently 
evident ; but that many took part in them is well attested, 
in spite of the fact that the political clubs of Athens and 
other Greek cities were the foci of all manner of schemes. 
ISTo better school for young men can be imagined than these 
coteries, in which older men were the chief speakers, and 
where all questions of human interest were discussed over 
and over. It would not be difficult to name a score of 
men who might be found together in Athens at almost any 
time during the period here under consideration, whose 
conversation, if well profited by for a year or two, would 
of itself constitute a liberal education. How valuable such 
a privilege was no one in our day can so well appreciate as 
the solitary student. The Greeks had a strong aversion to 
the written character. On this point I can not do better 
than to quote the words of Butcher. Says he : "The sever- 
ance between writing and the fine arts — beneficent as it 
was from the artistic point of view, and no less so 
from the point of view of convenience — was unhappy for 
the prestige of writing, which was long regarded by the 
Greeks as mechanical, symbolic — almost cabalistic. They 



46 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

dissociated from it the notion of organic beauty and artistic^ 
form. Now, as artists, they disliked all mere routine — all 
work that was merely mechanical. The free inspiration of 
the poet was checked by the use of conventional symbols; 
the epic and the drama depended, if not for their very ex- 
istence, at least for their vitality, on the living voice and 
on listening crowds. Add to this fact that poetry, with its 
musical accompaniments, could be carried in the memory 
without external aid and appliances. * * * * Socrates 
says writing is the mere image or phantom of the living and 
animated word. It does not teach what was not known be- 
fore; it only serves to remind the reader of something 
that he already knew. It enfeebles the power of thought. 
It is delusive even as an aid to memory, for it weakens and 
supersedes this faculty by providing an artificial substitute- 
Moreover, it has no power of adaptation; it speaks in one 
voice to all; it cannot answer questions, meet objections, 
correct misunderstandings, or supplement its own omis- 
sions." 

The student of Greek pedagogy can hardly fail to be im-> 
pressed with its weakness in what we call its moral ele- 
ments. Socrates, indeed, taught that it was just as far 
from right to injure an enemy as to injure a friend, and 
his countrjnnen seem to have had a sort of vague notion 
that justice prevails in the end. On the other hand, the 
Greek orators in their harangues seldom appeal to any other 
motive than a rather narrow and short-sighted expediency. 
Whatever they may have thought, they seem to have felt 
that it was only by such appeals that they could produce 
the impression they desired upon their auditors. A kind of 
fatalism, either latent or expressed, runs through the en- 
tire body of Greek literature. It seems to have been ad- 
mitted that men might do what they would, the event lay 



ASPECTS OF ANCIENT GREEK EDUCATION. 47 

in the hands of the gods, who were often whimsical, and 
who often interfered in the best laid schemes of mortals 
without regard to their moral qualities. The religious be- 
lief of the Greeks, so largely formed and moulded by the 
Homeric Poems, had a deleterious effect upon their con- 
duct. This was so keenly felt by men like Plato that they 
wished to exclude them from the list of educational books. 
But this was only a theory, and no one seems to have ever 
thought seriously of putting it into practice. These poems 
exhibit, along with much that is surpassingly beautiful, 
the most revolting scenes of inhumanity, unchastity, lying 
and deception. There could hardly be a greater contrast 
between the books now put into the hands of the young 
and those that were in the hands of Greek boys from their 
earliest childhood. The effect of this teaching, both direct 
and indirect, was of the most pernicious character. The 
qualities most conspicuous in Greek heroes of both history 
and fiction were rarely such as would now commend them 
for imitation. 

There is nothing more prominent in the instruction of 
the young Greek than the extraordinary stress laid upon 
the cultivation of the memory. It is the key-note of the 
entire system. From the beginning to the end of his school 
days he was constantly employed in learning by heart the 
literature of his country. The case of a young man is re- 
corded hy Xenophon who was required by his father to 
commit to memory the entire poems of Homer; and there 
is nothing in the anecdote to show that the feat was re- 
garded as exceptional. In this connection we may also re- 
mind our readers of the story told regarding the humane 
treatment accorded by the Sicilians to those Athenian cap- 
tives who could repeat considerable portions of the dramas 
of Euripides. In this respect the later Greeks were doubt- 



48 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

less influenced by the earlier rhapsodists tvho were in the 
habit of reciting long extracts from the Homeric Poems at 
the various entertainments and assemblies so common 
among their countrymen. 

Yet this method, now regarded as so objectionable, and 
which is so rapidly going out of use, not only produced 
great literary characters, but great thinkers, great his- 
torians, great physicians, great mathematicians, great sci- 
entists, great artists, and great oratork With these facts 
and results before us, is it not safe to conclude that but 
one thing is indispensable for the most efficient intellectual 
training of the young, and that is a thorough acquaintance 
with the highest literary achievements of the race? The 
example and experience of the ancient G-reeks furnishes 
useful lessons for our time, both positively and negatively; 
positively, as showing that a small amount of knowledge 
may be so used as to produce intellectual excellence of the 
highest order; negatively as making plain the fact that 
something more than this is needed to make good citizens 
and guarantee the perpetuity of the state. 

It is a remarkable fact, to which there is room here for 
only a passing reference, that our own day is the witness of 
a return to the fundamental principles of Greek pedagogy 
in the prominent place advocated for the study of litera- 
ture. What the Greeks actually did we are strongly ur'ged 
to ^o, namely, to begin the study of the best authors in the 
lowest grades and continue it through the highest. It goes 
without saying that the modern movement has no connec- 
tion with antiquity, but is the outgrowth of a careful study 
of our social condition and needs. JSTevertheless, some- 
thing more than literature is necessary. Mere literature is 
a product that is too spontaneous in its origin to be a safe 
guide to conduct. We need to know history; we need to 



ASPECTS OF ANCIENT GREEK EDUCATION. 4,9 

have placed before our young people the results of con* 
duct, the political and social experience of the race, if we 
would have them learn the effect of human conduct on 
the happiness or misery of mankind. If the habitual prac^ 
tice of honesty, chastity, sobriety, truthfulness, self-denial 
for the good of others, do not in the long run bring the 
greatest good to the greatest number, and if the disregard 
of these virtues does not produce the opposite results, as 
shown by the experience of the older governments, where 
shall we find our sanctions for moral conduct? 

The extraordinary amount of attention bestowed upon 
athletic training by the Greeks has been referred to above, 
and is, moreover, a fact so well known that not much need 
be said about it here. Strength, agility, swiftness, and en- 
durance were qualities of supreme importance to the citi- 
zens of states that were more at war than at peace. The 
Athenians strove to make sound bodies as well as sound 
minds; or, rather, they regarded both as of equal import- 
ance. The Spartans, on the other hand, almost wholly 
neglected the mind, but trained the body to the highest de- 
gree of efficiency. The practice of athletic games was more 
nearly vmiversal among the Greeks than attention to moral 
culture. The various governments provided the necessary 
buildings and appurtenances with far greater liberality 
than they provided for schools. A collection of houses 
among which there was no gymnasium was not regarded as 
entitled to the name of city. It was especially in athletic 
contests that emulation and rivalry were stimulated to the 
highest degree. The Athenians, however, went farther and 
instituted literary contests, and their intellectual superi- 
ority is in no small degree due to this fact. 

Sparta and Athens are usually spoken of as the leading 
states of Greece, but we do not always keep in mind that 



50 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

what we know of the achievements of Spartans comes to us 
through the records of their hereditary enemies, the Ath- 
enians. To the latter we may fitly apply the words of 
Longfellow and say that most of them are both "writers 
and fighters ;" to the former the line of Dr. Johnson is more 
suitable, for they live to us only "To point a moral or adorn 
a tale." 

As the moon and the stars would be invisible except for 
the illuminating rays of the sun, so Sparta and the lesser 
states of Greece would emit but a few faint glimmerings in 
the dark vista of history were it not for the light shed upon 
them by Athens. If we would form a just estimate of this 
remarkable people we need to keep in mind the small num- 
ber of Athenian citizens at any time, and then consider that 
among this number were more men in a single century who 
profoundly influenced the progress of thought than ever 
appeared in the same length of time subsequently in the 
whole world. 

While its true that the conditions under which they lived 
cannot again be restored, the study of this age, so prolific 
in great men, must ever continue to be one of profound in- 
terest. No wonder that Schiller, looking back from the 
troublous times in which he lived, should give vent to the 
feelings that burdened his sad heart in the beautiful lan- 
guage of his poem, "The Gods of Greece," the closing stanza 
of which reads : 

"Home! and with them are gone 

The hues they gazed on and the tones they heard ; 
Life's beauty and life's Melody: — alone 

Broods o'er the desolate void, the lifeless Word; 
Yet, rescued from Time's deluge, still they throng 

Unseen the Pindus they were wont to cherish : 



ASPECTS OF ANCIENT GREEK EDUCATION. 51 

Ah, that which gains immortal life in song, 
To mortal life must perish !" 

The genius of the Greek people, as expressed in literature 
and art, remained but a short time at the zenith of its 
glory. Greek history is not without interest, even to the 
fall of the Eastern Empire; but more than a thousand 
years before this event took place those elements of Greek 
social life that are the most important to posterity had 
virtually disappeared from the earth. The Alexandrian 
period was one of intense intellectual activity, but this 
activity was concerned almost wholly with the past. After 
Greece had become a Eoman province, schools of rhetoric 
were established and maintained in nearly all the cities 
and towns of the East as well as in Greece proper. A 
knowledge of the Greek language was a common accom- 
plishment in almost the whole Eoman Empire, and there 
seem to have been few illiterates. It is a noteworthy fact 
that Paul wrote his Epistle to the Romans in Greek. Long 
after the separation of the Eastern from the Western Em- 
pire the great mass of the classical writings, as well as 
most of what had been produced in the interim, was still in 
existence, and much of it read in the schools. It is to the 
Saracens and, perhaps, in an equal degree to the inroads 
of the Crusaders that is due the immense loss of manu- 
scripts that modern students so greatly deplore. 

It is hardly possible to contemplate the history of Greece 
without a feeling of profound sorrow for her manifold 
misfortunes and a feeling of contempt for her wretched 
statecraft. All accessible evidence goes to prove that the 
lessons of the past have been almost wholly lost on the 
present generation, no less than upon their immediate 
predecessors for two or three generations. Nations have 



52 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

110 guide for the future but the experience of the past^ and 
if they refuse or neglect to profit thereby they are certain 
to reap the bitter fruits of their folly and shortsightedness. 
It is a sad fact that though the people of Europe have 
been studying Greek life for at least five hundred years 
they have profited little by the lesson left upon record — 
as little as the Greeks themselves. The moderns appro- 
priated from the ancients what gratified the taste, but 
gave hardly any practical attention to the things that 
would have made life a thousandfold more worth living. 
What would we say of the wisdom of that man who should 
give much attention to the art of dressing well and taste- 
fully but should concern himself little about the laws of 
health? In theory no one maintains that it is better to 
look well than to be well; in practice this is the uncon- 
scious maxim the vast majority have followed. Of no 
people can it be said with more truth than of the Greeks : 
if the will of the majority had supported the wisdom of 
the intelligent — ^not the intellectual — minority, the history 
of the world would have been many times brighter. 

Note. — Francis Galton, a severely scientific investigator tiius 
expresses himself in regard to the Greeks, in his Hereditary Ge- 
nius. "The ablest race of whom history bears record is un- 
questionably the anciait Greek, partly because their master- 
])ieces in the principal departments of intellectual activity are 
still vmsurpassed and in many respects unequalled, and partly 
i>eeause the population that gave birth to the creators of these 
masterpieces was very small." He then gives a list of the dis- 
tinguished men produced between 530 and 430 B, C. numbering 
fourteen. After citing a quantity of facts, he says further: "It 
follows from all this that the average ability of the Athenian 
race is, on the lowest possible estimate, very nearly two grades 
higher than our own — that is, about as much as our race is above 
the negi'o. This estimate, which may seem prodigious to some, 



ASPECTS OF ANCIENT GREEK EDUCATION. 53 

is coiifiniied by the quick intelligence and high culture of the 
Athenian community before whom literary works were recited 
and works of art exhibited, of a far more severe character than 
could passibly be appreciated by the average of our race, the 
caliber of whose intellect is easily gauged by the contents of a 
railway book-stall." 

His reasons, actual and inferential, for the rapid decline of the 
"marvelously-gifted race" are thus stated. "Social morality gi'ew 
exceedingly lax ; marriage became unfashionable and was avoided ; 
many of the more aecomplished and ambitious women were 
avowed courtesans, and consequently infertile, and the mothers 
of the incoming population were of a heterogenous class. In a 
small s^-bordered country where emigration and immigration 
are constantly going on, and where the manners are as dissolute as 
weie those of Greece in the period of which I speak, the purity of 
a race would necessarily fail. It can be, therefore, no surprise 
to us, though it has been a severe misfortune to humanity, that 
the high Athenian breed decayed and disappeared; for if it had 
maintained its excellence, and had multiplied and spread over 
larg^ countries, displacing inferior populations (which it might 
well have done, for it was naturally very prolific), it would as- 
suredly have accomplished results advantageous to human civiliza- 
tion, to a degree that transcends our powers of imagination." 



ASPECTS OF ANCIENT GREEK ETHICS. 

There is perhaps no social question on which it is more 
difficult to form a correct opinion than upon the ethical 
standard of a people. It is not easy when we take into ac- 
count our contemporaries, or even our neighbors; but it is 
tenfold more difficult when we study nations that are widely 
separated from us in time and space, or both. An addi- 
tional element of complexity is introduced into the prob- 
lem by the fact that ethical standards are not uniform, nor 
are all the parts that enter into it regarded as of equal im- 
portance. They exhibit a kind of moral stratification, 
some of the layers of which are thick and easily observed, 
while others are thin, or do not exist at all. It is true, the 
moral characteristics of a nation have more or less relation 
to each other, but they are not all, nor necessarily, con- 
nected. For instance, commercial integrity is not always 
found associated with continence, or with that virtue that 
is known in modern times as temperance. It is safe to say, 
that, on the whole, the commercial integrity of the French 
is as high as that of the English ; but there is every reason 
to believe that social purity is regarded as of less import- 
ance by the former than the latter. Again, in a study of 

C54) 



ASPECTS OF ANCIENT GREEK ETHICS. 55 

the virtues and vices of a people, we are generally com- 
pelled to get our data at second hand, to use testimony 
that is always liable to be more or less distorted; in short, 
to depend largely on inferences, in the drawing of which 
men are apt to differ widely. But if the evidence is fur- 
nished by our contemporaries, and especially by men and 
concerning men occupying about the plane of civilization 
with ourselves, we are in the least possible danger of draw- 
ing erroneous conclusions. 

But there are other facts that may lead to error. It is 
well known that two spoken or written words, while ap- 
parently meaning the same thing, may, in fact, differ 
widely in signification. Persons using the same expres- 
sions do not necessarily mean the same thing. Without 
knowing somewhat intimately a speaker or writer, we can 
never be sure that we know just what meaning his words 
are intended to convey. Some men, like some nations, 
habitually use great plainness and bluntness of speech; 
they do not hesitate to talk of matters that are elsewhere 
never mentioned in cultivated society. Yet it would often 
be wrong to draw inferences as to morality from these 
facts. Plainness of speech on all subjects does not neces- 
sarily argue in favor of laxness of morals. The English- 
speaking people are much more conventional in speech and 
manners than those of Continental Europe. Is it safe to 
say, that, on the whole, their public morality is higher ? If 
we compare the Turk with the Englishman as regards the 
use of intoxicants, the comparison will result much more 
favorably for the former than the latter; but if we com- 
pare them on the ground of sexual morality, the decision 
will be very different. If, then, we wish to make a com- 
parative study of the ethical standards of two or more na- 
tions, — or of two individuals, for that matter, — we need to 



66 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

define carefully the various elements that make up the 
standard. Speaking figuratively, we may say that it is a 
compound into wliich a number of ingredients of necessity 
enter, and in varying quantity. We shall be more likely to 
attain definite results if we make the comparison along 
certain lines, or follow certain strata, so far as this can be 
done with the available material. It is a matter of common 
experience, that foreigners differ widely in their estimate 
of the general character of a people among whom they have 
dwelt for a time. We sometimes find their reports diverg- 
ing so widel}^ that we are at a loss to understand how 
they can refer to the same community. The same thing 
often occurs in the case of individuals ; and we are driven, 
for an explanation, to the extreme fallibility of human 
judgment. 

As it is proposed in the present article to make a brief 
study of Greek ethical standards, we need here only to refer 
to a fact well known to scholars, that modern writers upon 
this question have reached widely different results. I be- 
lieve that, generally speaking, the conclusions of the mod- 
ems have been too favorable. I believe, further, that this 
is largely owing to undue stress laid upon certain noble 
traits exhibited by the Greeks and an excessive admiration 
for their aesthetic qualities, to the neglect of other equally 
important characteristics in the make-up of national char- 
acter. Strange as it may seem, the Germans appear to have 
come widest of the mark, while the French and English 
have exhibited the Greeks more nearly in their true light. 
Friedrich Jacobs, for instance, in his enthusiastic admira- 
tion of the sssthetic taste of this people, frequently draws 
inferences favorable to their ethic qualities to which they 
are hardly entitled. Schiller's well-known "Goetter Greich- 
enlands" has contributed not a little to shed a halo over the 



ASPECTS OF ANCIENT GREEK ETHICS. 57 

mythology of the ancient Greeks. No doubt there arc 
points of view from which the free-and-easy life of an- 
tiquity becomes attractive to us, hemmed in as we are by 
the conventionalities among which we live and move from 
day to day. But if their condition is studied from all 
sides, and from the standpoint of every member of the body 
politic, the verdict can scarcely fail to be less favorable. 
The history of Greece, no less than the writings of her phil- 
osophers, is adequate evidence that the citizens of the 
Greek republics very often suffered quite as much from too 
little government, at least of *a wholesome sort, as the con- 
temporaries of Jacobs and Schiller suffered from too much- 
It is a well-marked tendency of our times to idealize a 
social condition so much nearer to nature, in a certain 
sense, than our own, that makes so many writers glorify. 
and at times sigh for, the life of our Germanic ancestors, 
or even the nomadic life to the i-.ndivided Aryan race. By 
directing our attention too much to those features of social 
life that contrast favorably with our own, and leaving out 
of account the many disagreeable features that are an es- 
sential part of the picture, it is easy to make the mistake to 
which I have just referred. 

It is unwise to lose sight of the fact that restraint and' 
civilization move forward hand in hand. In the evolution 
of social life, there is a constant tendency to abridge the 
liberty of the individual, for the good of the community, 
and in order to secure greater freedom for him as a member 
of the body politic. It can be clearly shown that what is 
60 often called the natural state of man is a misnomer, and 
that one state is no more natural than another. Our mod- 
ern Weltschmerz, the desire to be something else than what 
-.ve are and where we are, has led many a man to construct 
out of a figment of his imagination, a state of existence that 



58 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

could never be found anywhere on the face of the globe. If, 
like the usurer of Horace, of whom he sings in his second 
Epode, they were brought face to face with this imaginary 
state, they would probably decide, as he did, that, after all, 
they are better off than they would be if transplanted into 
their imaginary paradise. 

Let us consider for a moment what we are to understand 
by ethical conduct. Perhaps we cannot better define it than 
to say, that it is conduct regulated according to a law not 
made by ourselves that makes for righteousness. But a 
great deal depends on what we understand by righteous- 
ness, and there is not room here to discuss the point. As 
soon, however, as an individual recognizes such a law and 
voluntarily obeys it, in contravention of a narrowly selfish 
impulse, he begins to be an ethical being. It is evident 
that, until he admits the binding force upon him of such 
a law, he is unfit to be a member of a political or social 
body. It is asserted by some writers. — Muensterberg in 
his '^'Ursprung der Sittlichkeit^' expresses himself very 
positively on this point, — that the people which the Ger- 
mans call Naturvoellcer act wholly without any ethical 
elements in the motives that influence their conduct. But 
it is not easy to see how even the most primitive people 
can exist in a state deserving the appellation of "social," 
with feelings towards each other so nearly on a par with 
brutes. On the contrary, it seems to be nearer the truth, 
that all human beings, even the lowest, perform some acts 
and refrain from others from ethical motives. It is prob- 
ably more correct to find the germs of ethical conduct in 
certain brutes. To assert anything positively on either 
question is hazardous, and to draw inferences from our 
meager knowledge accessible in both cases is scarcely less 
so. If the lowest savages are governed wholly by impulse 



ASPECTS OF ANCIENT GREEK ETHICS, 59 

and the desire to gratify their passions immediately and 
without regard to the remoter results of conduct, it is hard 
to see at what stage the germs of altruism are discoverable. 

Certain it is that the Greeks of the earliest ages had 
already long passed the primitive state, and even that oc- 
cupied by all the Eastern nations, except the Hebrews. 
They were intensely patriotic, in the sense of being ar- 
dently attached to their fellow-citizens, their ancestral cus- 
toms, and their native land. For these they were generally 
willing to sacrifice everything they possessed, not except- 
ing life itself. They recognized national, and to some ex- 
tent international, obligations. They had some conception 
of the importance of family life in the perpetuity of the 
state. They had a strong sense of the dignity of manhood 
and a deep-seated aversion to monarchy in all its forms. 
The ethical systems of some of the Greek philosophers were 
far in advance of the popular standard, and approximated 
more or less closely to that of the New Testament. On the 
other hand, it is extremely doubtful whether any believed 
in their system so thoroughly as to make its precepts the 
norm for the regulation of their own lives. Besides, the 
popular notions as to the character of the gods had a most 
deleterious influence on private morality, — an influence 
from which even the noblest philosophers were not wholly 
exempt. 

The Greeks when they first come under our observa- 
tion, had already passed, by a long interval, beyond a prim- 
itive stage of religious belief. Nevertheless, to them the 
imiverse was literally filled with divinities, benevolent or 
malevolent, as circumstances might dispose , them. The 
most serious hindrance to any consistent line of conduct, 
in the popular mind, was the caprice of the divinities. 
Their good-will was sometimes gained, and their enmity 



60 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

often incurred by the most trivial acts, — acts which in their 
nature had no ethical value, but frequently the contrary. 
Unlike the Eomans, the Greeks knev/ of no way to compel 
the favor of the gods. But even the most august and 
powerful of the dwellers on Olympus was not wholly su- 
preme in the affairs of men or of the gods. A mightier 
than he was blind fate, inscrutable destiny, that was the 
final arbiter in everything. 

The Greeks when they first come before us in the Ho- 
meric Poems are already organized into civic communities. 
They recognize a body of unwritten laws which the Eo- 
mans designated by mos majorum, mos patruns and other 
like terms. The validity of these customs has its sanction 
in the e:5perience of men everywhere, but they are most 
scrupulously obeyed where the talent for political organiza- 
tion is most marked. Neither in politics nor in ethics were 
the Greeks very firmly attached to tradition, though this 
attachment was stronger among the Spartans than else- 
where. The willingness to accept foreign arts and cus- 
toms had a deleterious effect upon their morals; and it i» 
well established that some of their worst vices were intro- 
duced from the East. They never exhibited the moral earn- 
estness manifested by the Hebrews at a much earlier 
period. They were too fond of having a "good time"; 
too ready to give the loose rein to their passions ; too willing 
to gratify sensual desires. In consequence, they could not 
be induced for any length of time to follow the counsels of 
those who had more wisdom and political insight than has 
the average man. If we turn aside for a moment to com- 
pare the moral character and earnestness of the ancient 
Hebrews with the Greeks, the result of the comparison will 
be very greatly to the advantage of the former. From the 
very na+^ire of the case, a code of laws formed by a single 



ASPECTS OF ANCIENT GREEK ETHICS. 61 

mind, able to discern intuitively the remote ejffects of con- 
duct, will always be superior to one that is the product of 
evolution by an entire people. It is doubtful whether 
any one man in the history of the world has so deeply and 
lastingly influenced its thought as the patriarch Abraham. 
Coming forth as he did from among an idolatrous people 
to proclaim the unity and spirituality of God, his was a 
step forward and upward the far-reaching consequences of 
which cannot be over-estimated. Judaism, Mohammedan- 
ism and Christianity are based upon this thought. The 
more the career of this man is studied, the more remarkable 
it is ; inexplicable, we may well call it, from the mere hu- 
man standpoint. From the central idea around which his 
whole life revolved, his people, in spite of their frequent 
moral lapses, never entirely departed. When we consider 
the abominations that idolatry has always and everywhere 
countenanced, the ethical import of Abraham's life is 
brought into still greater prominence. Greatly as we must 
admire Socrates for his wisdom, his keen insight, and his 
moral earnestness along certain lines, we can but feel that 
his friendliness toward the mythology of his country was 
detrimental to his influence as a teacher of morals. It was 
such a tissue of ridiculous absurdities, that it is hard to 
see how so intelligent a man as he could have had any pa- 
tience with it. Or, if he regarded the popular mythology 
in its true light, his best friends have strangely misinter- 
preted his attitude. The history of the w^orld shows with 
painful distinctness, that, until men had emancipated 
themselves from a belief in the plurality of gods, there 
was no ethical basis possible for the regulation of human 
conduct. 

The Greeks of Homer's age have often been compared to 
children ; and not unaptly. But it should not be forgotten. 



62 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

that, while they exhibited some traits that we expect to 
find in children, they often gave way to the basest passions 
of full-grown men. The range of their ethical ideas was 
more circumscribed than that of the moderately well- 
trained child of our day. The ferocity they sometimes 
manifested is appalling. A typical example is the treat- 
ment of the dead Hector by his slayer Achilles. There is 
no shadow of excuse or justification for his conduct toward 
a chivalrous foe. He had engaged in a deadly duel with 
the odds against him, and under circumstances that would 
naturally have aroused compassion in any breast but that 
of the lowest savage. Yet even the poet who relates the 
story of this harrowing deed has no word of condemnation 
for the victor or of compassion for the vanquished. In 
subsequent times this same bloodthirsty and vindictive 
Achilles was regarded by all the Greeks as the embodiment 
of youthful beauty and heroic bravery. Similar ferocity 
is sometim.es exhibited under other circumstances, as in 
the case of Medea, but there is usually more or less justifi- 
cation for it. But the influence of the Homeric Poems 
upon the popular mind was far greater than that of any 
other literary production. 

It was an unfortunate circumstance for the ethical de- 
velopment of the Greeks, that their literature for the most 
part commended itself, in spite of its low moral tone, by 
reason of its sesthetic excellence. That some of their best 
thinkers clearly recognized and deplored this fact is well 
known. It is hardly to be doubted that the Homeric Poems 
retarded the moral growth of the Greek nation quite as 
much as they refined and elevated and promoted their lit- 
erary taste. While there is no question, that, from the 
dawn of philosophic inquiry, many persons began to out- 
grow the anthropomorphic ideas they embody, this intel- 



ASPECTS OF ANCIENT GREEK ETHICS. 63 

lectual eiiiancipation brought with it little or no profit to 
the cause of morality. The Greek rationalists, like the 
French freethinkers of the eighteenth century, not only 
lost faith in a religion that was largely supported by hy- 
pocrisy, but they also surrendered that part of it which 
furnished a support and sanction for moral conduct. In 
the time of Aristophanes even the Greek populace had seem- 
ingly given up all respect for their gods, or faith in their 
traditional mythology; yet, with a strange inconsistency, 
they feared the very beings whose existence they doubted. 
Temple robbery and sacrilege were at all times regarded 
as heinous crimes, and severely punished. Long after the 
period here under consideration, Paul found the Athenians 
scrupulous observers of the external forms of religion, and 
indifferent to its spirit. While it is probably true that 
the conduct of Socrates at his trial was the chief cause of 
his death, it must be said, to the eternal disgrace of his 
countrymen, that they were willing deliberately to enter- 
tain charges of the most ridiculous character against him; 
and they condemned him to death for crimes that nine- 
tenths of the jury must have known that he had not com- 
mitted. 

This brings us to another reprehensible trait of the 
Greeks — their slight regard for human life. Men were 
put to death upon the flimsiest pretexts, — sometimes singly, 
sometimes in large numbers. Socrates tells his fellow- 
citizens, that he would probably not have survived many 
years if he had engaged in politics, for in the nature of the 
case, he must ere long have fallen a victim to party ran- 
cor. The ferocity with which their feuds were often car- 
ried on almost exceeds belief. In every city, and at all 
times, there seems to have been a large number of "outs," 
who neglected no opportunity to get possession of the gov- 



^ WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

ernment. Their object was always purely selfish, except 
in some rare instances where self-preservation was the mo- 
tive. In these internecine struggles, men were as recklessly 
deprived of life as if it were a thing of little value. Jur 
dicial proceedings in capital cases were characterized by 
the same precipitancy. One would suppose that the plain- 
est dictates of prudence would plead for leniency toward a 
defeated party. A turn of the political wheel might easily 
bring those wfio were below to the top, and mercy shown 
could be used as a valid ground for asking mercy in re- 
turn. But, as would be expected of short-sighted children, 
the only question with the dominant party was always, how 
to root out every particle of unfriendliness, as if this could 
be done so effectually that it could never raise its head 
again. 

The Greeks never grasped the importance of law in the 
development of civic institutions. What the Germans call 
Rechtssinn was almost entirely lacking in their char- 
acter. As if afraid to trust themselves, they frequently 
passed decrees fixing severe penalties on any one who should 
propose the repeal of a law. The persistence of this racial 
type is plainly seen in Greek politics in our own day. 
Every citizen is or wants to be a politician or a statesman, 
and there is little doubt that if modern Greece were a 
pure republic, the people would want to elect a President 
iit least as often as once a month, and turn out all the office- 
holders in order to make room for a new set. The injus- 
tice this mode of procedure has worked from time immemo- 
rial need not here be dwelt upon. Greek political writers, 
beginning with the earliest, often deplore this fickleness 
of their countrymen. Again and again they said : If you 
will cease to quarrel among yourselves, compose your in- 
ternal feuds, and unite in a common enterprise, you can 



ASPECTS OF ANCIENT GREEK ETHICS. 65 

easily make yourselves masters of the entire world. But 
such admonitions almost always fell upon deaf ears It is 
not remarkable, then, that a strong foreign power which 
promised to put an end to internal strife should be wel- 
comed by many thinking men in Greece. It was the best 
thing attainable under the circumstances. The Greeks 
never grasped the importance of personal responsibility. 
The citizen was merged in the city. In many cases a body 
of men that might fitly be characterized as a mob, decided 
what was right and what was wrong according to the pas- 
sions then prevalent What a travest}^ upon justice their 
collective action when laboring under excitement often was, 
is well known. 

A cardinal moral weakness of the Greeks was their readi- 
ness to accept bribes. Not only were many of them always 
willing to receive money from the Persians, but offers 
from their own countrymen rarely came amiss. It is true 
that public sentiment was strongly against such conduct, 
but it was not strong enough to make the business thor- 
oughly odious. It seems to have been felt that the loudest 
outcry was often made against it by those who were so un- 
fortunate as not to have been subjected to temptation. 
This penchant is, in part at least, explicable by two char- 
acteristics that were prominent in the Greeks : one of these 
was the keen enjoyment of sensuous pleasures; the other, 
a decided aversion to labor. As public opinion was strongly 
against the citizen who engaged in money-making enter- 
prises, other avenues for getting rich were readily entered. 
The citizen must not labor; if he does, he forfeits the re- 
spect of his fellow-men, no matter how much his charac- 
ter may be deserving of it. Personal worth is not the de- 
cisive factor in such a case. The state is the arbiter in the 



66 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

matter; and the state has decided that labor is for the 
slave, state-craft and philosophy for the free man. 

Nothing strikes ns as more remarkable in the most ad- 
vanced Greek thought than its attitude toward human 
slavery. That the popular mind accepted the status quo 
without a question is not strange, but that the philosophers, 
almost without exception, were unable to see that the "sum 
of villanies" must eventually be abolished, is inexplicable. 
They anticipated modern thought in many directions. In 
some things they seem even to have divined the goal it 
would ultimately reach. But slavery was to them so es- 
sential a part of civic and social life, that no thought of its 
ultimate abolition dawned upon the mind of any one. The 
justification of slavery by Aristotle and others reminds one 
of the puerile arguments sometimes heard, in ojite helium 
days, in favor of letting slavery in the South alone, on the 
ground that the owners of slaves had lawfully paid for 
them. When the Stagirite tells us that some persons are 
by nature of a servile disposition, and fitted only for a 
station in which they will be wholly under the tutelage of 
a superior, we readily assent; but, when he proceeds to 
justify slavery on this account, we involuntarily ask our- 
selves, whether he is in earnest, and expects to be taken 
seriously. It was sometimes the misfortune of the wisest 
and noblest to fall into slavery. As wars were anciently 
carried on, it could not be predicated with certainty of any 
one that he would never be sold as a slave. The weakest 
and least deserving from any point of view, — ^the women 
and the children — ^were most in danger. Their birth did 
not decide their destiny, though it might in some cases 
mitigate the treatment they received. Where slavery ex- 
ists, human life is cheap. It brutalizes men, not only 
toward the unfortunate beings who are in their power, soul 
and body, but also toward equals. It has been an unmiti- 



ASPECTS OF A:NCIEj^T GREEK ETHICS. 67 

gated curse wherever it has existed; yet governments have 
clung to it, and encouraged it, with a persistence worthy of 
a better cause. Perhaps, after all, we need not be surprised 
that no ancient philosopher looked forward to the time 
when slavery should be abolished in every civilized country. 
Compare note on page J/-2. 

It is well known that in all the Grecian and Koman cities 
there was a considerable population debarred from the 
rights and privileges of citizenship, though to some extent 
under the protection of law. There is no doubt that the 
existence of numerous slaves, together with the class just 
referred to, had a most deleterious effect upon the public 
morals. Abundant experience has proved that the surest 
way to bring the state to its highest efficiency and its great- 
est security, as well as to elevate the tone of its morals, is 
to grant to as large a number as possible of those enjoying 
the protection of its laws a direct share in the government.. 
This gives to all a personal interest in the internal affairs 
of the state, and makes eveiy one more or less responsible- 
for its perpetuity. There is no way to ruin a young maB^ 
more completely than to make him feel that, do what he- 
will, he can never become of any importance to any one. 
not even to himself. As he cannot elevate himself, he ha;? 
no interest in assisting others to rise. But he may, and* 
generally does, revenge himself and gratify his social in- 
stinct by dragging others down to his own moral level.. 
Wherever slavery has existed, human life has been cheap,, 
and public morality low. That the latter was exceptionally 
so in ancient Greece becomes more and more evident as 
one's knowledge of the subject deepens. 

There is abundant testimony to show that chastity and 
conjugal fidelity on the part of men were neither com- 
mended nor practiced. Prostitution was frightfully com- 



68 



WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 



mon. Married women were held to strict account, lest 
they might debauch the state by illegitimate offspring, but 
there was no restraint upon husbands, either in the laws or 
in public opinion. A few passages bearing upon this point 
may properly be cited here. In the second book of his 
Memorabilia, Xenophon reports the following remark as 
made by Socrates to his son : "And, in truth, you are not 
to assume that men beget children for the sake of mere 
sensual plaasure, since the streets as well as the brothels 
are full of the means of gratifying desire." This state- 
ment bears strong testimony to the prevalence of the social 
evil in Athens in the fourth century B. C, but it is also 
evidence of the matter-of-fact way in which it was regarded 
by men like Socrates. Testimony to the same effect is 
furnished by Demosthenes in his harangue against Neaera 
We quote a single passage: "We have mistresses for the 
sake of pleasure ; concubines for the daily attendance upon 
our persons ; wives for the sake of legit imato children and 
of having faithful guardians of our households.'' Here 
the orator's "we have'* shows that he is speaking of what 
is universally admitted, and not of himself alone. He is 
but identifying himself, in the matter of sexual morality, 
with the mass of the citizens. A wife is not regarded as a 
companion or an equal, but as a creature that exists solely 
in order that legitimate offspring may be brought into the 
world. If one would realize what such a confession im- 
plies, let him remember the public occasion on which it 
was uttered ; then let him picture to himself what the effect 
of such an avowal would be if made in the presence of 
hundreds, perhaps thousands of men in our day. Let him 
remember, too, that we are not dealing with the mere off- 
scourings of a great city; but that the orator is standing 
in the presence of the most respectable citizens, who had 



ASPECTS OF ANCIENT GREEK ETHICS. 69 

met together for the purpose of hearing what a great orator 
would say on an important case. I am aware that this 
oration is now generally regarded as wrongly attributed to 
Demosthenes. This, however, detracts little from its value 
as testimony to the moral status of the Athenians in the 
time of the great orator. Its importance in the history of 
Greek morals remains unimpeached; besides it only cor- 
roborates testimony of the same character found in other 
writings. When one reads some of the Plays of Aristo- 
phanes for the first time he involuntarily asks himself 
whether a condition of things such as he in part describes, 
and in part assumes to be well known, can have existed in 
any community having any claim to be called civilized ; yet 
a more thorough knowledge of the then current sexual mo- 
rality of the Greek cities soon convinces the student that 
the witty poet has not painted his picture in too deep colors. 
The Epistles cf Paul, written several centuries later, make 
it painfully evident that Greeks and Romans, even after 
their conversion to Christianit}', were slow to yield the lax 
moral notions they had held while heathen. 

Social purity was a vice so deeply ingrained in the 
habits of the people that it was almost impossible to eradi- 
cate it. To this day the effort has been successful only in a 
Yery moderate degree. Nothing is more clear than that the 
Greeks made light of such a command as, "Thou shalt not 
commit adultery"; much less did they realize the high 
moral standard of Christ set forth in the words, "Wlioso- 
ever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath already 
committed adultery with her in his heart." It is doubtful 
whether this phase of conduct was ever seriously considered 
by any of their philosophers. 

In all Greek literature there is no more typical character 
than Ulysses. His prominent traits are fertility of re- 



70 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

source, superior skill in gymnastic exercises and in the use 
of arms, tenacity ot purpose, unscrupulousness in the at- 
tainment of ends, fidelity to friends, implacable hostility 
to enemies, familiarity with the sea and all that pertains 
to it, and ardent love of country. But chastity and con- 
jugal fidelity are not in the list of his virtues. His lapses 
in this regard are mentioned by the poets with as much 
naivete as if nothing else was to be expected. In striking 
'contrast to the way in which they speak of her husband, 
is the praise, expressed or implied, bestowed on Penelope. 
She is represented as faithful to her lord, modest in her 
demeanor under all circumstances,— in short, she is made 
a model of purity. Like traits under different circum- 
stances are exhibited by Arete and Nausicaa. Though the 
position of women in the Homeric Poems is higher and 
more influential than it was in most of the Greek states in 
historical times, the ethical standard by which she was 
judged had changed but little. 

There is room here to touch briefly upon a single ad- 
ditional trait of the Greeks : their extreme vindictiveness. 
To surpass friends in conferring favors, and enemies in 
doing injuries, was a fundamental article of the national 
creed. This condition of things is so nearly universal 
among savages that it would call for no comment, were 
it not for the marked superiority of the Greeks in many of 
the elements of the most advanced civilization. Here 
again it is plain that no necessary connection exists be- 
tween the highest intellectual gifts and a high moral 
standard. It is true that Socrates taught a doctrine dia- 
metrically opposite to the universal practice of his coun- 
trymen; and he deserves all the greater credit for his cour- 
age and far-sightedness. But moral earnestness and in- 
tellectual acuteness had elevated him to an ethical plane 



ASPECTS OF ANCIENT GREEK ETHICS. 71 

to which few of his countrymen ever attained even in their 
philosophical systems, much less in their conduct. It must, 
however, be admitted that in spite of the short-comings of 
the Greek people in both their public and private life most 
of the Greek thinkers had a profound conviction of the 
moral order of the world. Their Weltanschauung is largely 
tinged with pessimism because their countrymen so often 
chose and persisted in courses that could lead nowhere but 
into disaster. Herodotus somewhere says that the most 
unfortunate situation in which a man can find himself is 
when he sees calamity approaching and is unable to avert it. 
Aeschylus inquires, "What defence are riches to a man 
who insolently spurneth out of sight the mighty altar- 
throne of Justice?" After enlarging upon this theme he 
cites the case of Paris as a warning example of a man who 
by frivolous and unrighteous conduct brought innumer- 
able woes upon his family and his country. He contends 
that "Justice shines in houses dark with smoke and honors 
virtuous life ; while gold-bespangled seats, where hands are 
filthy, she leaveth with averted eyes, and unto pious homes 
repairs, revering not the power of wealth with spurious 
commendation stamp'd." "The swift stroke of Justice 
comes down upon some in the noondg^y light ; pain waits on 
others in the midst of darkness, and the gloom of night 
overshadows them." At another place he says: "There is 
a voiceless law which is not seen by thee while thou sleepest, 
walkest and sittest; which accompanies thee, now at thy 
side, now behind. For the darkness of night does not 
conceal thy evil deeds, but whatsoever crime thou hast 
committed, doubt not some one has seen it." 

The historians are equally certain that wrong-doers can 
not escape the penalty of their misdeeds. There is room 



72 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

here for but a single citation. Herodotus puts into the 
mouth of a Spartan the following anecdote : 

Three generations ago a certain Milesian came to Sparta 
to a citizen of that place renowned far and wide for his 
probity, and left with him a valuable deposit of money. 
He also gave to the citizen, whose name was Glaucus, cer- 
tain tallies with the directions that the monev was to be 
returned to the person who produced the tallies. Many 
years after, the sons of the depositor appeared before Glau- 
cus and, producing the tallies, asked to have the deposit re- 
turned. The Spartan now professed to have forgotten the 
matter, but promised to do what was just in case he really 
had received the money, as the strangers asserted. He 
wanted four months for reflection. Meanwhile he went to 
Delphi to consult the oracle as to whether he might be per- 
mitted to swear that he had not received the money and 
so make a prize of it. The Pythoness replied that he might 
do as he wished since death is equally the lot of those who 
keep oaths and of those who do not ; but the Oath-god over- 
whelms with destruction the perjurers and preserves those 
who keep their promises. Glaucus, now^ thoroughly fright- 
ened, besought pardon of the Pythoness for his question, 
but she answered that it was as bad to tempt the god as to 
have done the deed. "At the present time,'^ adds the nar- 
rator, "the family of Glaucus is extinct in Sparta." 
Whether we read the poets, the philosophers, the historians 
or the orators we find the same clear views of the penalties 
involved in the infringement of the moral law. 

The Athenian people may be compared to a woman who 
is endowed with all the possible charms of mind and per- 
,son, — fair in face, stately in form, majestic in carriage, 
graceful in movement, bewitching in manner, with a ge- 
nius, it may be, for poetry or painting or sculpture; but 



ASPECTS OF ANCIENT GREEK ETHICS. 73 

who is capricious, often utterly unreasonable, untrust- 
worthy, given to moods, now an angel, now a demon, yet 
always exhibiting the same unerring taste and displaying 
the same passionate love of what is beautiful. 

Many modem writers have interested themselves in 
showing how the ethical elements of Christianity were grad- 
ually evolved from the tenets of the Greek philosophers. 
One of the most instructive recent contributions to this 
question is the "Logos Spermaticos'' of Dr. Edward Spiess. 
a volume of more than five hundred pages of parallel pas- 
sages to the New Testament from the writings of ancient 
Greeks. The inquiry is not without profit, as showing that, 
in the fullness of time, the world was ready for the teach- 
ings of Christ, and that his appearance was not out of har- 
mony with social evolu-*-'on. But the ethical philosophy of 
the Greeks lacked some important principles that were es- 
sential to the healthy and uninterrupted progress of the 
world. A gradual evolution will not account for the ap- 
pearance of the first man, nor of such characters as Abra- 
ham and Moses ; least of all will it explain the coming of 
Christ, unless we mentally supply some essential factors 
for which we have as yet no data. The weakest part of 
Greek philosophy was its morality, because it was tinged 
with ethnic characteristics ; the power of Christ's teachings 
lies in their ethical elements of universal validity. 



KNOWLEDGE AND MORALITY. 

There is, perhaps, no thought that occupies men's minds 
more frequently at the prensent time than admiration for 
the wonderful age in which we live. Nor is this surprising. 
When one compares the closing years of the nineteenth 
century with the end of the sixties, and examines somewhat 
in detail the inventions and discoveries of the intervening 
period, he finds himself indeed in a new world. In nothing 
has public opinion undergone a more marked change than 
in the estimate placed upon the value of knowledge, per se. 
So many secrets have been wrung from the keeping of ma- 
terial nature, and the information thus gained has been 
turned, in so many ways, to the effective service of man, 
that the world seems to be looking for its temporal salva- 
tion in this direction. That the increase of the public wel- 
fare is commensurate with the advance of knowledge is an 
axiom that has influenced public opinion within the last 
few decades to a remarkable degree. 

The most tangible expression of this belief is the liber- 
ality shown, both by states and individuals, in the estab- 
lishment and support of institutions for the highest edu- 
cation. It is entirely safe to say that more money has been 
donated and voted for this purpose during the last ten or 

C74) 



KNOWLEDGE AND MORALITY, 75 

fifteen years^ perhaps even during the last three or four, 
than during the entire preceding history of our country.* 
Most of it has come from men, and by the votes of men, 
whose scholastic attainments are not above the average. 
They have been influenced in their action by the tide of 
popular opinion, perhaps far more than by their own in- 
clination, at least in a majority of instances. But this 
estimate of the value of knowledge is not confined to the 
United States. France has been extraordinarily liberal 
in its provision for both elementary and higher education. 
The Republic has literally covered the country with nor- 
mal schools and faculties corresponding to some extent to 
German universities. Germany has for a long time been 
conspicuous for its liberality in educational matters. 
Strangely, too, the Germ-ans, under a government verging 
on a despotism, promote education in order to maintain 
their political institutions; while France and the United 
States are pursuing the same course, in order to strengthen 
their free institutions. We have been persistently re- 
minded that we must educate, or we must perish by our own 
prosperity; and that, unless we do so, we shall inevitably 
lose the liberties that have been handed down to us from 
our fathers. It is hard to see how anything can produce 
two diametrically opposite effects, and it may be profitable 
to examine the foundation upon which the popular belief 
rests. 



^According to the latest obtainable statistics the sums given 
for educational and charitable purposes in the United States in 

1899 amounted, in round numbers, to eighty million dollars. In 

1900 the sum was sixty- two and a half millions, while in 1901 it 
reached a total of one hundred and twenty-four millions. Of 
this amoimt nearly sixty-nine millions went to educational insti- 
tutions, not including libraries, museums and galleries. 



76 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. - 

If the effect of the general diffusion of knowledge is to 
promote the highest welfare of the largest number, it is 
probable that the form of government has little to do with 
the problem. But it will be profitable to consider, whether 
those periods of the world that are most conspicuous for 
intelligence were, on the whole, the happiest ; whether there 
are not other factors of the social organism, such as na- 
tional traits, individual characteristics, and creeds, that 
are more potent for good than mere knowledge; and 
whether, conversely, we are not mistaken in assuming that 
all we need to do to make men better is to make them more 
intelligent. It is taken for granted that to make men 
more intelligent, or at least better informed, is to make 
them more reasonable. Is the assumption correct? Is 
it true that, as the majority becomes enlightened, as the 
world judges enlightenment, they will be more ready to 
help those, always a large proportion, of the population 
who need help and guidance and encouragement? 

One cannot read attentively the history of the ancient 
Greeks without feeling all the time that many of them 
clearly recognized the horrors of war, and the futility of 
engaging in it with a view to gaining any permanent good. 
This is plainly indicated in their historians, their philoso- 
phers, and their dramatic moralists. They recognize, 
clearly, too, the existence of a rule of right that was not 
dependent upon the changing beliefs and impulses of men. 
They nevertheless were compelled to yield to public opin- 
ion in the midst of which they lived, and Greek civilization 
decayed under their eyes and through forces against which 
they continually protested. A modern historian even goes 
so far as to say that the Greeks were not naturally a war- 
like people, in spite of the fact that they were almost con- 
stantly engaged in war. Even in the Homeric Poems the 



KNOWLEDGE AND MORALITY. 77 

transcendent value of obedience to law and the rule of 
right are clearly recognized. Yet how little influence did 
this recognition have on the progress of events. It is al- 
most literally true that the most civilized and intelligent 
people of antiquity went to their destruction with their 
eyes open. Though wanting to do good, evil was ever 
present with them. It was impossible to make head against 
an all-powerful pernicious public opinion that received its 
inspiration not from reason, but from sentiment. 

On the other hand, the Eoman state was built up and 
maintained by the intense feeling of patriotism which made 
its citizens always act in the spirit of the maxim, "My coun- 
try, right or wrong.'' The Romans possessed a genius for 
government which was not founded on intelligence, but on 
a national trait. Passing over a large interval of time, 
we find this genius the most marked in the English. Yet. 
taken on a whole, it will hardly be claimed that they have 
been the most intelligent people of Europe for the last three 
or four hundred years.- On the other hand, it seems clear 
that the moral forces have, during most of this time, been 
more active and more influential in England than in any 
country on the Continent. 

Though there is some apparent injustice in comparing 
the two periods, owing to the difference in time, we are 
safe in saying that the Reformation in Germany had much 
less influence on the morals of the people than the move- 
ment inaugurated in England by the Wesleys and White- 
field. In mere scholastic learning Germany was unques- 
tionably far ahead of England in the middle of the eigh- 
teenth century, and probably for a long time before. The 
same is true in a more marked degree of France. Yet, 
while France and Germany were filled with scholars and 
men of genius, the country was going from bad to worse. 



78 WISD03I A^W WILL IN EDUCATION. 

and, so far as a regeneration came, it was not inspired or 
carried out by them. In England, moral and religious 
forces have always been active and vigorous, as they still 
are ; on the Continent, except at rare intervals, weak. No 
matter how large a stock of facts we accumulate, if one has 
no inclination to use them, of what advantage are they? 
And, while England is doing less to-day than either France 
or Germany to promote intelligence, and put the highest 
learning within reach of all, we do not hear of much 
that is done to promote practical morality in the latter 
countries. If we are to Judge the situation from the testi- 
mony of Germans and Frenchmen, the moral condition of 
their countrymen is becoming worse as they are becoming 
more intelligent or at least more intellectual. Plainly the 
salvation of the world does not come through worldly wis- 
dom. This is a truth confirmed by past experience and 
present observation. 

In view of the testimony just cited, the man who believes 
that ^^righteousness exalteth a nation" may well ask. What, 
then, shall we do ? Evidently to fill the land with scholars 
is not to fill it with men of character, with men who be- 
lieve in doing right because it is right. If the more intel- 
ligent members of a commimity are truthful and commer- 
cially honest because the practice of truth and honesty are 
the characteristics of a gentleman, but take no interest in 
the weak and degraded, it is not hard to see where and to 
what such indifference will lead. 

If there is any good reason for the somewhat widely dif- 
fused faith in the efficacy of mere education to promote the 
happiness of mankind, it ought to become strikingly mani- 
fest in the growing aversion to war. Is this so ? A recent 
writer truthfully says : '*'If men forsake the use of swords 
and spears, it assuredly is not to convert them into plough- 



KNOWLEDGE AND MORALITY. 79r 

shares and pruning hooks, but to substitute rifled cannon 
for these antique instruments of slaughter, now found in- 
effectively murderous. Surely never was the aspect of 
Europe so threatening as it is at the present hour. Stand- 
ing armies of a vastness hitherto undreamed of confront 
one another. The frontiers of every country are embattled. 
Railways are converted into military roads. The physical 
sciences are ransacked for engines of carnage. The whole 
continent is an immense parade-ground, destined, — who- 
ean say how soon ? — to become a vast battlefield.^' " 'Tis 
pity, and pity 'tis, 'tis true.'' In this willingness of the 
nations of the earth to engage in deadly conflict with each 
other, upon a trifling pretext, we see the power of irrational 
motives operating destructively. It is the spirit of a pack 
of mastiffs ready to fly at each other's throat as soon as> 
an opportunity is offered. One does not need to have been 
a very profound student of history to know that when two' 
governments wanted to go to war with each other they 
easily found a reason for so doing. Most of these professed 
reasons were flimsy enough, but they served their purpose. 
The world is still ready, as it always has been, to applaud a 
weak nation for taking up arms against a strong one, 
though the outcome is plain beforehand. It at least shows; 
pluck, — a praiseworthy trait, certainly, but it needs proper 
direction. 

We all know the story of the German professor, who, 
when told that his house was on fire, said to his informant. 
"Go tell my wife; I never meddle with domestic affairs.'"' 
He was a typical student; absorbed in some insignificant 
matter, he took no account of what was going on around 
him. In truth, the people have never perished for lack of 
knowledge, but for lack of the will to use it. When we- 
see on what utterly useless trifles many men have spent 



80 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

their lives merely because they hoped to find out something 
never known before, we need to beware of expecting the 
world's salvation to depend on mere worldly wisdom. 
There has never been a time in what we may properly call 
the history of the world when there was not sufficient avail- 
able knowledge to make all men as happy as they can ever 
expect to be, if they had seriously tried to use it. John 
Howard w^as a man of slender intellectual attainments as 
the world estimates attainments, but he was inspired by the 
noble motive to use what he knew for the uplifting of the 
neglected and vile of his race. And thousands before and 
after him have done the same. Not many wise are called,, 
as the world counts wisdom ; yet, except for these, the pres- 
ent generation would be far worse off than it is. 

The moral law is founded on reason, but it does not ap- 
peal primarily to the reasoning faculties. To not more 
than three of the commands of the Decalogue is added a 
reason for disobeying them. They seem to have been 
framed on the principle that men should obey as children 
are taught to obey their parents, in the full reliance that 
obedience may safely be trusted to justify itself. It is a 
maxim well established by experience that he who stops to 
reason when temptation assails him is in great danger of 
yielding. The only safe course is to turn resolutely away 
from even the appearance of evil. We do not believe that 
those who know most are best. If this were so, the pro- 
fessional men in every country would be models of upright- 
ness. There is much justification for the intuitive dread 
with which many parents see their sons go to college. It 
often means a breaking away from the old beliefs that were 
the foundations of morality while it does not always mean 
the establishment of new and equally secure foundations. 
Young people are often brought into contact with their 



KNOWLEDGE AND MORALITY. 81 

peers who ridicule the old faith and who make light of the 
time-honored maxims that used to be regarded as the es- 
sential elements of an upright life. Sometimes even teach- 
ers mock at the "old-fashioned and outworn creeds" as un- 
worthy an age of science. We have almost reached an 
intellectual stage where only those things are counted 
of value that are cognizable by the senses. It is true that 
some of the most pronounced rationalists indignantly 
spurn the charge of materialism sometimes brought against 
them, but the whole trend of their teachings supports the 
charge. In this age of haste and hurry men are more 
ready to accept what is most obvious than what may be 
deduced by careful study and sustained examination. 

There has always been a movement of the population to 
the towns, and from the towns to the cities. It has never 
been more marked than in our day. No one can be blind 
to the fact that, where the population is most dense, the 
elevating agencies are most powerful ; but it is equally evi- 
dent, that these agencies are often utterly inadequate to 
the demands made upon them. Yet it is to-day as it has 
been always ; we look to the cities as the centers of intelli- 
gence and culture. No one who is morally weak seeks the 
city that he may be reformed, because he will find there 
many intelligent people, many fine churches, many elo- 
quent preachers, great lawyers, and distinguished physi- 
cians. He will seek his own regeneration rather by re- 
versing his course, and going where these conditions do 
not prevail. It is a well-established maxim that cities are 
centers of moral turpitude of every form; and it has al- 
ways been so. 

The more one studies the epistolary writings of the 
New Testament in the light of the conditions under which 
they were produced, the more he becomes impressed with 



82 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

the marvelous insight into the needs of their time ex- 
hibited by the writers. They developed and applied the 
simple teachings of the Founder of Christianity in a man- 
ner that cannot fail to command our admiration. Every 
Epistle is different from every other, according as the cir- 
cumstances of those addressed were unlike; yet the funda- 
mental theme is everywhere the same; the motives to 
which appeal is made, are the same. The various schools 
of Greek philosophy had each essayed in vain to provide 
a regenerative force. They were all originally too intel- 
lectual, and had in time degenerated into mere idle specu- 
lation, or into quiescent introspection. So far as they 
had any definite aim, it was to know, not what and how 
to do. The author of the "Education of the Greek People" 
well says, "Until the supernatural sense can recognize 
as its object a living God, or Being with perfect intelli- 
gence, love, will, supernaturally correlated, but in no 
sense identical with the spirit of men, so that his perfec- 
tions are their goal and ^ot his being, their grave, it will 
never be able to maintain itself against abstracting reason 
or supply the basis of moral life." And again, "The les- 
son of history is, that of all the faculties of the human soul, 
that which demands the most careful training is the super- 
natural sense. While it remains undeveloped all other 
education leads ultimately to nothing. It was the failure 
to recognize this that made Greek education impotent to 
save the world, and forced it to crown itself with Chris- 
tianity, whose function is to train the supernatural sense 
to a recognition of the living God as the Father of Spirits, 
the guardian of the moral law, and the bond of institu- 
tional life." 

Passing again to modern times, for we are not here con- 
cerned with chronological sequence but with parity of con- 



KNOWLEDGE AND MORALITY. 83 

clitions, we fmd many points of resemblance between west- 
ern Europe in the eighteenth and the beginning of the 
nineteenth century and the Eoman Empire in the time of 
Christ. What is called the literature of these periods takes 
singularly little account of the common people. They are 
not the submerged tenth, but the neglected two-thirds or 
more. The classical writers of these periods rarely men- 
tion them, except to stigmatize their brutalitj^, rail at 
their ignorance, or sneer at their stupidity. It is true 
there exists a considerable body of devotional literature 
called into existence by the spiritual wants of those Avho 
aspired to a better life, but these books rarely found their 
Avay into the hands of the educated, and certainly did not 
exercise any influence on them. As in England, so in 
Germany and France, there was always a considerable por- 
tion of the population that were genuinely pious and sin- 
cerely desirous to lead pure and holy lives. But the masses 
were little, if at all, influenced b}^ their example. Not 
until our own day did it occur to any one to write a His- 
tory of the English People, — apparently because hitherto 
readers were only interested to know what the upper class, 
those who were more or less concerned in shaping the po- 
litical destinies of the country, did. 

In another paper I have given a quotation from Kidd's 
Social Evolution, which puts in a striking light the atti- 
tude of the educated classes in England toward most of 
the reforms that have been brought about in that country 
during the present century. The extract occurs on p. 105, 
but deserves to be read in this connection. 

I am aware that he who undertakes to show the influ- 
ence of motives generally classed as irrational in the de- 
velopment of society and to set forth their potenc}' for 
good lays himself open to the charge of returning to the 



84 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

text on which the school of Eousseau preached so many 
powerful sermons in the last century. The influence and 
vitality of the doctrines so forcibly proclaimed by a man 
who was almost without education is a strong tribute to 
their truthfulness. In Germany a man of different mould, 
but aroused by the same conditions, was spurred to action 
while his French prototype was content to talk and write. 
The new doctrines were promulgated at a time when 
Europe was at least to some extent prepared for them, 
though this preparedness consisted rather in dissatisfac- 
tion with the old than a clear recognition of the needed 
remedy. The conservatism of the upper classes had be- 
come well-nigh unendurable. Their rule of life was regu- 
lated by the thought that for them the state existed; for 
them government performed its functions; it was right 
for them to exploit the resources of the country to the 
fullest extent it would bear. Almost all who had the 
courage to cry out against the existing conditions were 
proscribed ; were often in danger of incarceration and even 
of their lives. That one man is as good as another; that 
all men are brothers and bound together by obligations to 
mutual helpfulness; that it is the duty of the weak to 
protect the strong, are not articles that are found in the 
creed of those who stand foremost in the ranks of the in- 
telligent. It is Christianity, and Christianity alone, that 
has always insisted on the supreme importance of such 
teachings to the welfare of mankind in the widest sense. 
And it was just because the intelligent classes, not except- 
ing those whose calling made them the exponents of Chris- 
tianity, had long ignored these teachings, that a protest 
arose against the wretched condition in which the poor 
were perforce kept, from so many of those who had no 
sympathy with the prevailing religious creeds. It was al- 



KNOWLEDGE AND MORALITY. 85 

truistic feeling breaking through the crust of custom that 
had been hardened by the conservatism of centuries. 

This brief sketch of facts and inferences is not intended 
as a protest against the growing intelligence of our time. 
It is written for the purpose of calling attention to a 
serious danger into which we seem to be rapidly drifting. 
Some of the European nations are already on the verge of 
a precipice over which they may topple at any moment. 
There are few things for which it is impossible to find a rea- 
son. The most atrocious crimes have had their defenders ; 
the most unjust institutions their apologists. Sentiments 
and ideas, too, are often misleading; yet it is in obedience 
to these mainsprings of action that the world has grown 
better. They are the prime motors in human progress. 
They furnish motives to which all men in every progres- 
sive country naturally respond. It is with them that re- 
formers have primarily to reckon ; it is to them they must 
chiefly look for support; against them it is impossible to 
go forward. We may enlighten the head as much as we 
please, if we do not succeed in filling the heart with proper 
sentiments we shall not inspire any one to activity or to 
self-sacrifice for the good of others. It will hardly be de- 
nied that a large proportion of those who are engaged 
in research have no interest whatever in the welfare of 
mankind. Unquestionably the wisest activity is condi- 
tioned by the largest knowledge; but he who never acts 
until he is sure of being familiar with the entire situation 
will usually never act at all. I know of no caution that 
the enlightened nations of the world need more at this 
time than that against implicit faith in the doctrine that 
a training of the senses, pure and simple, will bring about 
that condition of society for which all good men labor and 
devoutly pray. 



REASON AND SENTIMENT AS FACTORS IN 
SOCIAL PROGRESS. 

It is generally held by philologists that the word which 
in the Teutonic tongues designates the head of the animal 
kingdom is closely allied to a verbal root whose significa- 
tion is "to think." Man is, therefore, the thinking being 
par excellence in the realm of animated nature. Whether 
this derivation be correct or not, and necessarily without 
reference to it, man is wont to assert for himself the proud 
pre-eminence of occupying the highest place among the 
creatures that inhabit the earth, and to claim that this 
position has been accorded to him, or that he has won it 
for himself, because he is alone the possessor of reason. It 
may be interesting, and it is certainly not without profit, 
from the practical point of vi^w, to examine to what extent 
the history of the race, so far as it is fairly well authenti- 
cated, bears out the common belief that reason has been the 
prime factor, the chief motive power, in human progress. 
Such an examination will prove almost beyond a doubt 
that ideas, impulses generally irrational, tradition, inter- 
ests real or imaginary, and national traits have played a 
far larger part in shaping the destiny of the world, and 
are doing so still, than is generally believed. A saying at- 

(86) 



FACTORS IN SOCIAL PROGRESS. §1 

tributed to Franklin, that there would be no advantage in 
being a reasonable creature if one could not find a reason 
for doing what he wants to, pointedly expresses the sub- 
ordination of reason to other motives that impel men to 
action. 

When a man makes up his mind to do a thing he can 
generally prove by a mental process to his own satisfaction 
that he ought to do it. Let us take the burning social 
problem of the day and see how far the influence of reason 
has been effective in dealing with it. We mean the drink 
problem. The advocates of temperance have nearly all 
the reason on their side; their opponents have everything 
else, including the appetites of those who drink and the 
avarice of those who sell. The intelligent class among all 
European peoples are on the side of temperance. Writers 
and speakers are incessantly warning their countrymen 
against the dangers of alcoholism. They are demonstrat- 
ing from day to day that more than one half the evils that 
afflict the body politic are due to drink. They point to the un- 
contradicted testimony furnished by the records of, poverty, 
crime and wretchedness as evidence of the reasonableness of 
their teaching. Yet how little has been accomplished, how 
few drunkards have been reclaimed, by argument ! Often the 
very men who are firmly convinced of the danger of med- 
dling with strong drink — and who is not? — are unable to 
resist an appetite when once strengthened by indulgence. 
The inefficacy of reason to stand against desire for drink 
has been so fully demonstrated that it has largely changed 
the methods by which the demon of alcoholism is to be 
combated. Instead of arguments addressed to reason, 
training is applied for the formation of right habits. Pro- 
phylactic agencies are brought to bear upon the child while 
in the plastic state ; and, though the reasoning powers are 



88 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

yet weak, this has been found to be the most effective, and 
indeed the only generally effective, preventive of drunken- 
ness. We have no desire here to enter into a discussion of 
the temperance question, and have only touched upon it 
because it illustrates in a striking way, and by examples 
.familiar to all, the subordinate position of reason in direct- 
ing human affairs. 

Although the philosopher Schopenhauer was a cynical 
critic of his fellow-men, he often told the truth plainly and 
pointedly. »Who will say that he exaggerated when he 
wrote the following ? 

'brainless pates are the rule, fairly furnished ones the 
exception, the brilliantly endowed very rare, genius a por- 
tentum. How otherwise could we account for the fact 
that out of upwards of eight hundred millions of existing 
himian beings, and after the chronicled experience of six 
thousand years, so much should still remain to discover, 
to think out, and to be said ? By far the greater part of 
humanity are wholly inaccessible to purely intellectual en- 
joyments. They are quite incapable of the delight that 
exists in ideas as such, everything standing in a certain 
relation to their own individual will, in other words, to 
themselves and their own affairs. In order to interest 
them it is necessary that their wills should be acted upon, 
no matter in how remote a degree." 

The material of which reformers is made is furnished by 
nature in such small quantities that none of it gets into the 
great mass of mankind. They are pretty well content with 
the world as it is, and expend far more thought in making 
themselves as comfortable in it as may be than in making 
it better. "We must take the world as it is," or "Why 
should we concern ourselves with the doings of our neigh- 
bors so long as they do not interfere with our own?" has 



FACTORS IN SOCIAL PROGRESS. 89 

always been the conscious or unconscious creed of a large 
majority of the human race. The researches of anthropol- 
ogists and historians have thus far failed to discover any 
evidence of the existence of human beings upon earth who 
were intellectually inferior to those now living. In so 
far as there has been or is any inferiority it is quantitative 
rather than qualitative. The most abject race can be civ- 
ilized in a generation or two when placed under proper con- 
ditions. No new faculties need to be created; it is only 
necessary to develop those already existing. Yet human 
progress is a comparatively recent thing. But faint traces 
of it are discoverable until the advent of the Greeks. 
Egypt and Babylon appear to us, at the other end of the 
vista of historical perspective, about as we find them two 
or three thousand years later. This could hardly have 
been possible if reason had been a force in ancient societ3^ 
In so far as it was, it can only have been the reason of the 
modern Turk, who finds the idea of progress utterly re- 
pugnant to him and who is content to be what his father 
was before him. If progress is founded upon reason, and 
not rather upon race characteristics, it is impossible to 
explain the wide diilerences that exist among the inhab- 
itants of the globe. 

There is no question affecting the relation of man to 
man upon which the civilized world is at present more 
nearly agreed than that slavery is wrong. So deep-seated 
has this feeling become that the foremost nations of our 
time have not only ceased to tolerate it among themselves, 
but have undertaken to extirpate it from the face of the 
earth. While we may question to some extent the disinter- 
estedness of the motives of some of those who engage in its 
suppression, there is no doubt that they have a strong 
public sentiment back of them. How glaring is the con- 



90 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION, 

trast of public opinion to-day upon this question with 
that of antiquity! No intelligent man will assert that in 
the power of thought^ in the ability to reason, the world 
has advanced one iota in two thousand years. It is uni- 
versally conceded that no greater men ever lived than 
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. These men, to say nothing 
of many others, seemed to have divined by a sort of super- 
human prescience almost all the lines of human progress 
for all time to come. Yet how little they have to say upon 
slavery, except to recognize it as an existing institution! 
Aristotle even enters into an elaborate discussion to show 
that servitude is the natural state of a part of the human 
race. Might has always made slaves. Even slaves found 
nothing reprehensible in the practice and submitted calmly 
to their condition, though they now and then rebelled 
against oppression. Those who had themselves been slaves 
never hesitated to enthral others when by a turn of for- 
tune they found the power in their hands. Not many 
years have passed since it was a common thing to defend 
slavery, and -even the pulpit took a share in this defense. 
We were frequently told that it was ordained by God him- 
self; that its abuse was no reason for its abolition; that 
it would be just as reasonable to turn all children over to 
the care of the state because some parents maltreated or 
neglected their offspring. Dean Alford, writing in 1864. 
expressed his contempt for the American people for several 
reasons, and among others for their '^reckless and fruitless 
maintenance of the most cruel and unprincipled war in 
the history of the world." This dignitary of the Church 
uttered not only his own sentiments, but those of almost 
the entire aristocratic class in England, to which the An- 
glican Church professes to belong. How delusive the prog- 
ress of the last score of years has proved the learned dean's 



FACTORS IN SOCIAL PROGRESS. 91 

reasoning to have been! How few persons can be found 
to-day who defend slavery ! England itself abolished slav- 
ery, not because it was more unreasonable in the nineteenth 
century than in the eighteenth, but because the growth 
of the altruistic sentiment among the English people would 
no longer tolerate it. 

It is doubtful whether in the last analysis war is ever 
a reasonable procedure. Under certain conditions a peo- 
ple may be justified in taking up arms. When a govern- 
ment becomes so tyrannical that its subjects can endure its 
domination no longer there is sometimes no recourse but 
rebellion. But not many of the wars that have drenched 
the earth with blood have been of this sort. Generally 
they are born of the lust of conquest or of the desire to 
uphold that peculiar sentiment, national honor. Many 
wars have been undertaken from a religious motive, and 
these have usually been the most relentless; yet the su- 
periority of one religion over another is the last question 
that can reasonably be settled with the sword. Hardly 
different is the case when national honor is involved. 
Take, for instance, the Franco-Prussian War. The French 
people held that their nation was insulted in the person 
of their ambassador. Every intelligent man knew that 
this was a mere pretext for engaging in a conflict that 
had already been determined upon. Two individuals who 
liappen to have a dispute can usually settle their differ- 
ences by referring them to a third party, especially if force 
in the guise of law is behind the arbitrator. It is gener- 
ally found that one or the other party is in the wrong, or 
it may be both. In the nature of the case a national dis- 
pute might be decided in the same way. But it is rarely 
done. It must be decided in a way that always proves 
costly to both parties and terribly costly to one of them. 



92 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

Reason and experience have proclaimed their lessons, for 
the most part in vain. In spite of our boasted progress 
there is a painful amount of truth in the recent words of 
a Congressman: "Nineteen hundred years have passed 
since the advent of the Man of Nazareth, and instead of 
growing nearer and more near to the universal era of peace, 
all the energies, all the inventive talent, all the genius of 
the human mind are now devoted to the manufacture and 
construction and suggestion of implements of war more 
horrible, more fatal in the power of execution, than any 
which the world has heretofore seen.'^ The intellectual 
pre-eminence of the Athenian people is well known. But 
how did they use their intelligence? Was it employed to 
promote the welfare of one another ? It was rather used to 
defend the institutions to which they had fallen heir by no 
effort of their own. Far more thought and labor were ex- 
pended in trying to injure one another than in the work 
of promoting their own welfare or that of their neighbors. 
Most people are theoretically in favor of the principle of 
arbitration and practically in favor of it when it con- 
cerns any nation but their own. It is easy to point out 
the right course when our interests, our possessions, or our 
putative honor are not involved. That the American peo- 
ple are passionately devoted to enforced arbitration for the 
settlement of international disputes was clearly proved 
by their attitude toward the recent controversy between 
Great Britain and Venezuela ; that they were little disposed 
to accept it for themselves was shown with equal clearness 
by the spirit with which they received the suggestion for 
a similar mode of adjusting their differences with Spain. 

There is probably no sentiment that dwells permanently 
in the human breast, and is hardly ever absent from any 
member of the race, for which so little can be said on the 



FACTORS IN SOCIAL PROGRESS. 93 

ground of reason as the love of early scenes. Tacitus 
failed to see how anyone could endure to live in such a 
country as Germany^ unless it were his native land. But 
affection for home and familiar surroundings is hardly 
ever effaced, no matter how unpleasant they may have 
been, and how far subsequent prosperity has removed one 
from them. Early habits leave such an abiding impress 
on us that we review the familiar scenes Avith a certain de- 
gree of pleasure, even when this is not untinged with sad- 
ness. The Irish peasant never forgets the land of his 
birth, though his recollections are wholly of abject poverty, 
or squalor, and half -satisfied hunger ; and he is ready at all 
times to take up arms against the government that he holds 
responsible for his woes. The German seeks to transplant 
his native customs to every land that hospitably receives 
him, and to make his new home in many respects as much 
like the land of his birth as he can. The Scandinavian 
from the Far North, a land almost unendurable to those 
accustomed to warmer regions, is never so happy as when 
he is permitted to return to his early haunts and to live 
over again the familiar scenes of his youth. There is no 
explanation of this curious psychological fact except that 
we feel a certain pleasure in doing over again that to which 
we have been accustomed, though at first it may have been 
unpleasant and even painful. Men are prone to run in 
grooves. It is hard to get those who have not been trained 
for it to do some new thing, to entertain new thoughts, to 
strike out new paths. Much easier is it to accept a tradi.- 
tion than to examine its trustworthiness. There is no 
harder work than thinking; and it is a kind of labor to 
which the common man is much averse. No wonder that he 
finds pleasure in doing and believing what has become fa- 
miliar and easy. No wonder that early habits and beliefs 



94: WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

have such powerful hold on most of mankind that they 
are ready to fight and even lay down their lives to pre- 
serve them. And what shall we say of the influence of 
chivalry upon the history of the world, using the term in 
an ethical rather than an historical sense ? It is almost the 
sole secular motive that lights up the dark wilderness of 
mediaeval history. "Order, veracity, loyalty, self-sacrifice, 
and mildness of manners, the protection of the weak and 
the innocent, and the punishment of wrong" were the mo- 
tives that gave it birth and nourished it into full-grown 
maturity. 

From the mythical age of Haemon and Antigone to the 
day of the contemporary novelist and poet, affection be- 
tween persons of the opposite sex has been a powerful in- 
centive to human action. The fact that it plays so large 
a part in the literature of fiction is but the proof that the 
shadow furnishes of a substance not far away. What 
deeds of prowess and daring has it not inspired and car- 
ried to successful issue ! It is true that its reign has not 
been one of unmixed good. From the courts of emperors 
and kings to the home of the peasant it has exerted its 
baleful or benevolent influence. We are not here con- 
cerned with the purity of the motive, but with its strength. 
No one who takes time to reflect can doubt that the devo- 
tion of the lover to his lady, or of the lady to her lord, has 
been one of the most powerful factors in the development 
of the race. Whether it has been the ephemeral passion 
whose fierce flames burned out the fuel upon which it fed 
in the brief space of a day or the conjugal fidelity as abid- 
ing as life itself, its potency none will dispute. Often the 
source of its inspiration, as in the case of Lady Macbeth, 
was demoniacal rather than divine ; its potency was none the 
less the arbiter of the destinies of nations and individuals. 



FACTORS IN SOCIAL PROGRESS. 95 

And what shall we 'say of a mother's love? By the al- 
most unanimous consensus of enlightened mankind there 
is no emotion of the human breast that partakes more 
largely of the divine than the love of a mother for her 
child. Irving well portrays it in the following language: 
"There is an enduring tenderness in the love of a mother 
to a son that transcends all the other affections of the 
heart. It is neither to be chilled by selfishness^ nor daunt- 
ed by danger, nor weakened by worthlessness, nor stifled 
by ingratitude. She will sacrifice every comfort to his 
convenience; she will surrender every pleasure to his en- 
joyment; she will glory in his fame and exult in his pros- 
perity; and if adversity overtake him, he will be the dearer 
to her by misfortune ; and if disgrace settle upon his name, 
she will still love and cherish him; and if all the w^orld 
beside cast him off, she will be all the world to him. It 
is never exhausted; it never changes, it never tires." Can 
any one say that this undiscriminating affection has done 
more good than harm? How few mothers there are who 
will recognize the stern demands of Justice when their chil- 
dren are concerned ? Who is there that has had to do with 
the instruction of the young that has not been reminded 
over and over again how hard it is to convince a mother 
that her child is in the wrong even when the denial puts 
everybody else in the wrong? If mothers had their way 
few malefactors would be punished and none executed. It 
is true, not all mothers are blind to the faults of their own 
children and lynx-eyed to the short-comings of others ; but 
those whose judgment in such matters is not overborne by 
their emotions are greatly in the minority. While it is 
true that fathers are not impeccable there is a considerable 
measure of truth in the words of Seneca : 



96 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

"Do you not see how differently fathers and mothers 
show their love for their children ? The former want their 
sons to be roused early in order that they may betake them- 
selves to their studies; their vacations even they would 
not have them pass in idleness, and they even draw sweat 
and sometimes tears from the youths; but mothers want 
to fondle them on their bosom, keep them in the shade; 
they would never have them weep, never be sad, never 
undergo toil." 

Perhaps no fact in what we may call ethnological psy- 
chology is more potent than the constitutional inability of 
any nation to form a just estimate of itself. And it some- 
times seems as if this weakness increased, if such an ex- 
pression be admissible, with the rank and intelligence of 
those who exhibit it. No reader, except a native, will 
rely upon the history of any country written by a native 
historian. In nine cases out of ten, wherever there is in 
the narrative an opportunity for the display of national 
bias we are sure to find it.* That France marches at the 



*It is refreshing to find occasionally a writer who openly ad- 
mits the truth even at the risk of being charged with the lack of 
patriotism. From a book published in Madrid in 1900, entitled 
"Education in the Twentieth Century," I take the following con- 
fession of the author: "In foreign countries no one takes any 
account of us ; we exist as if we did not exist. No important pub- 
lication pays any attention to education in Spain. No statistician 
takes note of us or mentions our name. Now and then a French 
publicist devotes to us a brief article in which he either treats 
us with a certain consideration, whereupon we reproduce it and 
think over it; or he treats us with a contempt which we do not 
resent." Is this backwardness of Spain due to national traits or 
to her comparative isolation? That the latter factor is important 
is proven by the relative prosperity of those portions nearest to 
France. 



FACTORS IN SOCIAL PROGRESS. 97 

head of civilization is an assertion one would endeavor in 
vain to refute in debate with a Frenchman. In their opin- 
ion they have never had occasion to go abroad for any- 
thing that was desirable. Yet it is an accepted fact that 
the French people know less of other countries than almost 
any others of Europe. Another typical case is afforded by 
recent histories of Germany. The success of the Germans 
in the Franco-Prussian war has turned the heads of al- 
most the entire people; and the German historians fre- 
quently talk of their fellow-countrymen as if they be- 
longed to some higher order of beings and had always so 
belonged. This, too, in spite of the fact that German 
literature, from the close of the Eeformation almost to 
the time of the French Eevolution, is hardly more than 
a blank ; while for a still longer period the German people, 
oppressed at home and despised abroad, were of no political 
consequence whatever. Difficult is it to get material for 
self-glorification out of German history. But national 
prejudice has abundantly demonstrated its power to oc- 
complish this feat. As few persons have access to original 
records, the great majority see facts only at long range 
and through the distorted medium of national vanity or 
prejudice, or both, with results that may be and often have 
been painful enough. It is sad indeed that so few persons 
can be led to see that truth alone makes free. Zeus is rep- 
resented in a passage of the "Odyssey" as saying: "Lo, 
how men blame the gods ! From us, they say, spring trou- 
bles. Yet of their own perversity, beyond what is their 
due, they meet with sorrow.^' It is evident that Homer's 
chief god was a careful observer. His sagacious remarks 
were not only history, but prophecy also. 

In one of his lectures Professor Giesebrecht used the fol- 
lowing language: "The sovereignty belongs to Germany 



98 • WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

because the Germans are an elite nation, a noble race ; and 
for the same reason it ought to exercise such an influence 
on its neighbors as it is the right and duty of every man 
endowed with superior intelligence and force to exert upon 
those individuals less highly endowed about him/^ How 
an honest man who knows the history of Germany can 
give utterance to such sentiments is incredible. Sometimes 
poor mortals who have lost their reason imagine themselves 
to be God. Such persons are usually confined in asylums, 
where they can harm neither themselves nor others. But 
in Germany we find men in professors' chairs and even 
wearing titles of nobility, telling their countrymen that they 
belong to a race of demigods, the speakers included, and 
are charged with the mission of enlightening their neigh- 
bors. This would be amusing if there were not always 
danger that it would lead to grave consequences. Yet it 
would be well for the world if this species of mental aberra- 
tion were confined to one country. Let us at least give 
the German professor credit for sanity in the moral he 
draws. 

In France the case is not greatly otherwise. Gallic 
pride has been terribly humiliated. Yet in reason what 
ought it to matter to the French or to the people of Alsace- 
Lorraine who governs them, provided they are well gov- 
erned and permitted to possess their property in peace? 
The attachment of the latter to France is all the more ridic- 
ulous for the reason that they are radically German. 
Here, again, we see the inability of reason to make prog- 
ress against a mere sentiment. Many a brave Frenchman 
has laid down his life for the delusive phantom la gJoire; 
and to what purpose? Taine, speaking only of the Na- 
poleonic era^, says: 



FACTORS IN SOCIAL PROGRESS. 99 

*' According to him (Napoleon) man is held through his 
egotistic passions, fear, cupidity, sensuality, self-esteem, 
and emulation; these are the mainsprings when he is not 
under excitement, when he reasons. Moreover, it is not 
difficult to turn the brain of man, for he is imaginative, 
credulous, and subject to being carried away; stimulate 
his pride or vanity, provide him with an extreme and false 
opinion of himself and his fellow-men, and you can start 
him off head downward whenever you please.'^ The re- 
sults of proceeding upon this policy are thus summed up 
by the learned writer: 

"Between 1804 and 1815 he has slaughtered more than 
1,700,000 men born within the ancient boundaries of 
France, to which must be added probably 2,000,000 of men 
born out of these limits, and all for him, under the titles 
of allies, or slain on his account, under the title of enemies. 
All that the poor, enthusiastic, and credulous Gauls have 
gained by confiding their public welfare to him is two in- 
vasions ; all that he bequeaths to them as a reward for their 
devotion, after this prodigious waste of their blood and 
the blood of others, is a France shorn of fifteen depart- 
ments acquired by the republic, deprived of Savoy, the left 
bank of the Ehine, and of Belgium — losing 4,000,000 of 
new Frenchmen which it had assimilated after man}^ years 
of life in common, and, worse still, thrown back within the 
frontiers of 1789, alone diminished in the midst of its ag- 
grandized neighbors, suspected by all Europe, and lastingly 
surrounded by a threatening circle of distrust and rancor." 

A few years before, the French people, for an idea which 
they expressed in the trinitarian formula, "Liberty, equal- 
ity, fraternity,*^ destroyed every man and every institution 
that seemed to stand in the way of a practical realization 
of the creed it embodied. Yet hardly a decade had passed 

L.GfC. 



100 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

before they were ready to follow implicitly the most imcom- 
promising tyrant that ever deluded a people. The desire 
to be free from oppression is eminently reasonable; but 
what can we say of a people who had just broken the yoke 
of bondage that had so long and heavily lain upon their 
own necks trying to fasten a new one upon their neighbors 
as well as upon themselves? No wonder Napoleon had a 
poor opinion of men when he saw how easily they could be 
led en masse into crime and misery. 

During the past few years we have heard much about the 
so-called Monroe Doctrine. In definition it apparently 
amounts to about this : when any government administered 
in Europe interferes in the affairs of any country on the 
Western hemisphere, except in case of its own possessions, 
the people of the United States are to regard such interfer- 
ence as a direct menace against them. Yet the territory vir- 
tually owned by Great Britain on the Western continent, to 
say nothing of other European governments, is probably 
equal in extent to the Union, and England may therefore 
reasonably be supposed to have an equal interest here with 
•ourselves. Nor is there any doubt that most of the Span- 
ish-American States, if they w^ere administered by an en- 
lightened people like the English, in spite of their short- 
comings, would enjoy peace and prosperity such as they 
have never known. We have assumed that the attitude of 
a monarchy towards a republic is always that of an op- 
pressor, without inquiring into the facts of th6 case. 
Again, there has for a long time been a feeling of sym- 
pathy for the Cubans in their desire to free themselves 
from the heavy yoke of Spain. There is not much doubt 
that this feeling was strongest in those States that fifty 
years ago led the Union into an unjust war with Mexico 
for the purpose of acquiring territory with a view to the 



FACTORS IN SOCIAL PROGKESS. 101 

extension of slavery, and a few years later plunged the 
whole country into a civil war, largely for the purpose of 
keeping the shackles of bondage on several millions of hu- 
man beings — a far worse condition than that of the Cu- 
bans under the government of Spain, except possibly when 
in a state of actual insurrection. A story is told of a 
Eussian countess who wept over the misfortunes of an im- 
aginary hero as she beheld them portrayed on the stage 
while her coachman was freezing to death at his post on 
her carriage outside. How man}^ of us can say that we 
have never been guilty of a similar if less shocking incon- 
sistency? Sometimes that which transpires immediately 
under our eyes moves us most strongly ; at others that which 
is more or less remote appeals most vividly to our imagina- 
tion. He who gives a dole or a dinner to a beggar or a 
tramp often does him and the community more harm than 
good ; but it is so much easier to yield to the paroxysm of 
sympathy aroused by a personal appeal than to try to in- 
telligently to remove the conditions that make tramps 
and beggars. 

The fundamental activity of the soldier is expressed by 
the lines, 

^^Theirs not to make reply, 
Theirs not to reason why, 
Theirs but to do and die." 

The soldier is not to inquire for a reason ; he has but to 
do what he is ordered to do. He is usually a young man ; 
not so young that his reasoning powers are undeveloped, 
but yet so young that his energy is prone to find expression 
in action rather than in deliberation. War needs not only 
men who are physically strong, but men who can be de- 
pended upon to subordinate their reasoning powers to the 



102 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

word of command. Wliether the command be a reasonable 
one does not enter into the problem. The best soldier 
is not he who looks at war in a large way, and who is 
capable of understanding the cause for which he is to lay 
down his life ; but it is he who is best able to use the means 
within his reach to accomplish the ends placed before him 
by those in authority over him. It is a question whether 
intelligence is so important a factor as is generally believed. 
No country has been so uniformly successful in war as 
Eussia, because no armies fight more bravely than the Eus- 
sian. The Eussian peasant, grossly ignorant as he has 
always been and is, never hesitates to lay down his life for 
his emperor, if the latter wills it. Apparently he has never 
concerned himself about the reason why. Yet what aston- 
ishing results have rewarded his prowess! While he can- 
not frame into words the Horatian dictum, "Dulce et de- 
corum est pro patria mori," he does more — he is the living 
exponent of it. Public sentiment finds ten heroes on the 
battlefield to one in civil life. That foolhardy bravery is 
often displayed and life lost in unwise and foolish conflict 
makes little difference. The world is interested directly in 
the act, and looks no farther. Physical courage is still 
rated far higher than moral courage ; if it were not so the 
world would to-day present a very different aspect from 
that which we see. 

From the consideration of mere personal bravery the 
transition is easy to the contemplation of patriotism. Here 
is a sentiment that is as 'versal as man himself. Every 
man, no matter how low in the scale of civilization, feels a 
certain degree of affection for the land of his birth; it is 
an affection akin to that which he feels for himself. But 
patriotism is an idea that, per se, will not for a moment 
stand the test of reason. The patriot is not necessarily wiser 



FACTORS IN SOCIAL PROGRESS. 103 

than the man whose motto is, "Ubi bene, ibi patria." The 
Fuegian loves his country just as fervently as the most en- 
lightened European. If the former were compelled to 
change place with the latter both would be equally unhappy. 
The one would protest as loudly against the efforts to ele- 
vate him as the latter to degrade him. 

Patriotism is not necessarily unreasonable, but it is al- 
ways unreasoning. A man may be able to give a good ac- 
count for the faith that is in him, and he may not. Lessing 
wrote, "Of love of country I have no conception ; it appears 
to me but a heroic weakness which I am glad to be with- 
out." Goethe was frequently blamed for his lack of patriot- 
ism. And, in truth, there is little in his writings that ex- 
hibits a distinctive German feeling, and there was equally 
little in his life. Plato, a coryphaeus among philosophers, 
is singularly free from national bias. When the historian 
Polybius made a study of the history of Kome, he found 
that its steady growth was not an accident. Though a for- 
eigner he could see that its government was stable from the 
absence of the forces that made the government of his own 
people unstable. The Eomans had instinctively put into ef- 
fect those principles which the Greek philosophers had foi 
centuries preached in vain to their own countrymen. The 
Romans were no philosophers, and despised philosophy. But 
they had the instinct of government, and rarely followed 
this instinct to their own detriment. Practical wisdom 
does not come through knowledge, often not even through 
experience. It may serve men who think, but this class is 
generally too small to make its impress permanently felt in 
the growth of states. Frederic the Great is reported to 
have said that if he wanted to ruin one of his fairest prov- 
inces he need only to place it under the government of the 
philosophers. Akin to this is his remark that "one pinch 



104 WISDOM AISW WILL IN EDUCATION. 

of common sense is worth a university full of learning." 
Though a man of exceptionally keen penetration he did not 
always see to the bottom of things. And so here. He mistook 
the appearance for the reality. He mistook for philosophers 
the pedants of whom his country was full, men who spent 
their lives in delving among musty tomes filled with the 
lore of the past or in disputing about philological, metaphy- 
sical and theological subtilties without once looking up to 
take note of what was going on in the world around them. 
Who was it if not the real philosophers that formulated the 
admirable system of instruction that has been to a greater 
or less extent the model for every progressive nation ? While 
Germany's thinkers have borne a leading part even her 
dreamers have done something. The investigator may by 
accident discover some important law in the physical uni- 
verse, but it is the philosopher only who can interpret its 
bearings and potency. 

Plato thought that unless philosophers became kings or 
kings philosophers there would be no cessation of evils 
among men. This is doubtless true, but true only on 
the assumption that philosophers are genuine lovers of 
wisdom and not mere devotees of their own theories and 
prejudices. Of the latter there are a score for every one of 
the former. 

It seems almost like a law of nature that the different 
peoples of the earth should have an antipathy toward each 
other. This is particularly true where and when national 
prejudices are strengthened by real or supposed national in- 
terests. But even among men of the same nationality who 
are reputed equally wise there are often the bitterest ani- 
mosities. Truth, for most persons, is not an abstraction. 
Those who are engaged in the search for what they believe 
to be the truth are men with passions like ordinary mortals 



FACTORS IN SOCIAL PROGRESS, 105 

and often as likely to be blinded by them or at least to allow 
their intellectual vision to be obscured by them. Here then 
we find the same difference of opinion as to what is reason- 
able, sentiment again overmastering reason. Keason is arti- 
ficial, deliberate, skeptical. Its function in human affairs 
is to regulate and control, not to supply "idea-forces." It 
decides how to do rather than what to do. Only in a re- 
stricted sense can it be said that intelligence rules the world. 
We believe the author of Social Evolution has stated a 
truth of far wider application than he makes of it when he 
says : 

"It has to be confessed that in England during the nine* 
teenth century the educated classes, in almost all the great 
political changes that have been effected, have taken the side 
of the party afterward admitted to have been in the wrong, 
they have almost invariably opposed at the time the meas- 
ures they have subsequently come to defend and justify. 
This is to be noticed alike of measures which have extended 
education, which have emancipated trade, which have ex- 
tended the franchise. The educated classes have even, it 
must be confessed, opposed measures which have tended to 
secure religious freedom and to abolish slavery. The mo- 
tive force behind the long list of progressive measures car- 
ried during this period has in scarcely any appreciable 
measure come from the educated classes ; it has come almost 
exclusively from the middle and lower classes, who have in 
turn acted, not under the stimulus of intellectual motives, 
but under the influence of altruistic feelings." Let us at 
least credit them with seeing and admitting their errors. 

Progress needs a motive force, and this reason does not 
provide. The most powerful emotion that moves men par- 
takes more or less of a religious character. It is every- 
where in the foreground in the Babylonian and Assyrian 



106 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

wars. It played an important part in the struggle of 
Greek with Greek, or of Greek with barbarian. A Roman 
army was invincible only when it was confident that it 
went into battle with the favor of the gods. The religious 
idea carried the victorious armies of the Saracens over a 
large portion of the knovm. earth in an incredibly short 
time. It is not necessary to enumerate any further ; every- 
one can recall the course of events for himself. Christian- 
ity does not appeal primarily to the reason. Its Founder 
taught ''as one having authority, and not as the scribes." 
His precepts are not usually supported by what men call 
reasons, nor are they arrived at by processes of ratiocina- 
tion. Their truth is intended to be spiritually apprehend- 
ed, not to be worked out by the rules of logic. They are 
intended for those who can feel, as well as for those who 
can reason. And how large the preponderance of the for- 
mer over the latter ! 

If I have read the history of philosophy aright it takes 
singularly little interest in the emotional nature of man. 
The ancients, indeed, make a great account of the pas- 
sions, but they generally regard them as a sort of disturb- 
ing element in the economy of society. Modern philoso- 
phy, beginning with Descartes and ending with Kant, 
seems to regard man's emotional nature as a matter of 
little consequence; as a sort of penumbra of the reasoning 
powers. With the advent of Rousseau a different state of 
affairs began to prevail. Rousseau himself was not much 
of a philosopher, because he lacked system in everything 
he did. But he was full of fruitful ideas, and he came at 
a time when the world was ready to listen to what he had 
to say. In his mental make up the emotional element 
largely predominated; he was so much a creature of im- 
pulse that there is nothing surprising in the extent to 



FACTORS IN SOCIAL PROGRESS. 107 

which he moved the world. The world had come to recog- 
nize that, while reason must not be ignored in the instruc- 
tion of youth, it cannot be wholly depended on as a guide. 
Modern pedagogy lays large stress on training, on giving 
direction to the young citizen or the young Christian be- 
fore he is old enough to reason much about it. It seeks to 
cultivate his sympathies for the needs of society before the 
selfishness that he is destined to find all around him in 
later life gains the mastery over him. He is taught that 
the poor and degraded have a claim upon his charity, al- 
though this charity is to be kept under the control of rea- 
son. He may not let the slave or beggar perish from neg- 
lect, even though both are largely responsible for their con- 
dition. It is sympathy, not reason, that is the moving 
force in the philanthropic spirit that we see manifesting 
itself so powerfully wherever man has any claim to be 
called civilized. Examples are numerous and ready to 
hand everywhere. Surely nothing can be more reasonable 
than the doctrine that every man is inherently as good aa 
another; yet how slow the world has been in recognizing 
this self-evident truth, even in theory! Christianit}^ first 
enunciated it, but even Christianity was not able to bear 
up permanently against the tide of sentiment and tradi- 
tion that bore down upon it. The early Christians them- 
selves were slow to accept the doctrine, witli all the conse- 
quences that seenied likely to flow from it. Even to-day 
it is far more a matter of theory than of actual practice, so 
slowly does the world outgrow its prejudices. 

The spiritual nature of man, that prescience of God's 
plan in the government of the world, that sublime faith 
in the ultimate triumph of right which we often see mani- 
fested in highly endowed natures, is in no wise amenable to 
the laws of reason. We see this exhibited in the most 



108 WI8D0M AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

marked degree in the Hebrew prophets. Their lofty faith 
in the coming of a Messiah who should rule the world in 
righteousness was a trait of a highly endowed spiritual na- 
ture. The intellect colored its outward expression, and to 
some extent modified its form, but was not its source. 
Many of the world's greatest benefactors — in truth, th& 
large majority of them — have not been men of pre-eminent 
intellectual endowment. They were men whose will was 
aroused to activity by a contemplation of the situation in 
which they found themselves. Kant said there is but one 
good thing in the world, and that is a good will. But the 
emotional nature seems to be more clearly related to the 
will than to the intellect, and to be more readily influenced 
by it. The result is that progress, in the best sense of the 
word, is not primarily intellectual. Its various phases do 
not, in the main, originate with the intellectual class, 
though men of large intellectual endowments often identify 
themselves with it. It is a mistake, therefore, to suppose 
that by stimulating and cultivating the intellect alone we 
can make the world better. Knowledge is not even power,^ 
as we are so often told. It is, indeed, an indispensable pre- 
requisite to power; but power is latent unless stimulated 
into activity by the will. They are sadly mistaken who 
imagine that nothing is necessary to insure the continuous 
amelioration of the condition of mankind but a continu- 
ous increase of the world's stock of available knowledge. 

After this brief review of the psychic forces that have 
been chiefly instrumental in shaping the destinies of men 
and nations we need not wonder that human progress has 
been slow, painfully slow. Irrational motives have been 
predominant everywhere. Yet morality is a child of the 
intellect. Even the most disinterested altruism may do 
more harm than good if it is not intelligently directed. If 



FACTORS IN SOCIAL PROGRESS. 109 

man were not an intelligent being he would make no more 
progress than the lower animals. In the future as in the 
past we must look to the regulative faculty to point out the 
course of safety. It is like the compass upon which the 
mariner depends to guide him across the watery waste. 
For while it has no power to move his ship an inch the 
stronger the propelling forces that urge him forward the 
greater the danger he incurs without its guidance. While 
this general truth has been patent to a few far-sighted 
men almost from time immemorial, — Socrates especially 
pointed it out with great clearr-^ss and his disciples after 
him — it has never been so widely comprehended as now. 
The theory of modern education proceeds on the assump- 
tion of the paramount importance of the human intellect. 
This is not saying that education should be exclusively 
intellectual. On the contrary, moral should precede in- 
tellectual education in time and be its constant companion. 
But even moral education can accomplish little unless 
wisely directed. If we are inclined to look with distrust 
on the large claims made for national education in our 
day by its most enthusiastic champions, because even the 
best education the world has had in the past seems to have 
counted for so little, let us remember that education in 
a large way is hardly older than the present generation. 
It has never had a trial. It has always been confined to a 
class or to a few classes. When attempts have been made 
to put an education, even the most elementary, within 
the reach of all its quality has been very inferior. Yet 
few competent judges will deny that much more might be 
done by teachers under present conditions and witji the 
present financial resources at their disposal than is at pres- 
ent being done. While there is little difference of opinion 
among educationists as to the ends of education, there is 
considerable difference as to the means and methods by 



[10 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

which these ends may be most surely attained. Nor is 
it probable that entire agreement will ever be reached, but 
a substantial agreement is palpably not far in the future. 
It is not here contended that the most nearly perfect system 
of general education the human mind can desire will ever 
totally eliminate from society the pauper and the criminal. 
The poor and the vicious we shall always have with us. 
On the other hand when we consider how much is being 
done under intelligent direction and how much has already 
been accomplished to enable all the members of the body 
politic to help themselves to make life more worth living 
for all who constitute civilized communities and that the 
good work had only begun on a large scale we may well be 
hopeful of the future. 



Note. — Charbonnel, in his "Victory of the Will," tells us how 
this victory is to be gained. "The philosophers have established 
laws for the discipline of the emotions and the control of our 
whole being, — namely, when an emotion or a sentiment favorable 
to our ideal arises in our consciousness, we are to fix our atten- 
tion on this passion or sentiment, so as clearly to recognize its 
purity and grandeur, and to arouse in ourselves an effort of the will 
which shall be conformable to it; when an emotion or a senti- 
ment arises which is antagonistic to our ideal, we must refuse 
it any attention, not even think of it, and thus let it pass into ob- 
livion. If we have already allowed an evil passion or an emo- 
tion to gi'ow and exercise an invincible power over us, we must 
examine seriously the ideas connected with it and the object it 
proposes to our will. Finally in the case where a desirable pas- 
sion or sentiment is lacking in us, we must search out the ideas 
with which this passion or sentiment may have some affiliation, 
and turn our mind toward these ideas, keep them constantly pres- 
ent to our consciousness, and arouse the natural law of associa- 
tion which connect such emotions, such ideas, together." 

Again: "A noble life, it has been said, is the grandest master- 
piece which any man can achieve. It is an harmonious and 
beautiful achievement. It is our privilege to subordinate and co- 



FACTORS IN SOCIAL PROGRESS. m 

ordinate in ourselves, by the exercise of our will, our varied and 
contradictory emotions. The ancients compared the soul to an 
harmonious lyre, which gives forth sweet sounds under the fin- 
gers of the wind. This, which is true of the poetic soul, is 

equally true of the moral soul. It should be a well-tuned and 
well-strung lyre, responding to all the impressions of life. And 
the best law for the development of the higher life is not the stern 
repression of our emotional nature, or the violent destruction of 
this part of our being, but the wise and firm direction of it by 
the will. No repression, no suppression, no mutilation, but a 
peaceful and serene domination of the will in our harmonious 
soul." 

Metaphysicians and psychologists may dispute as much as they 
please about the freedom of the will; in the last analysis every- 
body acts as if his OAvn will were free and that of all other persons 
likewise. The entire theory and practice of rewards and punisli- 
ments is based on this postulate. As Froude says, "To deny the 
freedom of the will is to make morality impossible." Neverthe- 
less action is always directed by the strongest motive and motive 
is wholly subjective. What a man's motives are in general de- 
pends almost entirely upon his education, directly and indirectly. 
Two men have the same opportunity for making a great deal of 
money. One of them says, "The morality of the proposed trans- 
action is questionable; I can not be a party to it." The other 
has no such scruples, — is not "squeamish," as the vforldling puts 
it, — ^^and becomes rich. Here the external conditions for both men 
are precisely the same and the motive the same ; but the will leads 
to diametrically opposite action. If education can not keep the 
young free from temptation it can do much toward enabling them 
to meet it as becomes beings who are normally responsible. With 
a quotation from Epietetus I may fitly conclude this paper: 
"There is nothing good or evil save in the will." 



KESPO:^rSIBILITY. 

When the Lord said unto Cain, "Where is thy brother T' 
the latter took the question as an impertinence, and re- 
joined, "Am I my brother's keeper ?'' No wonder the mis- 
creant was offended. He was not in position to give an 
account of his treatment of his brother. He would no 
doubt have been ready and willing to answer much harder 
questions than this one, but when he was asked about a 
matter of which he was fully cognizant he preferred to 
feign ignorance. It seemed the shortest and most direct 
way out of a difficulty. 

I do not here use the term brothev in the sense in which 
it was understood by the first murderer who has the mis- 
fortune to have his name handed down to posterity, but in 
the sense generally attached to it in the New Testament. 
The progress of civilization or at least of national and in- 
ternational intercourse has made closer and closer the 
bonds that bind together the remotest dwellers upon the 
face of the earth. But in every community every man is 
more or less responsible for his fellow-citizens, usually 
quite as much as if he were the son of the same father and 
mother. The question, Am I my brother's keeper? has 
made a good many peppie uncomfortable since the son of 

(112) 



RESPONSIBILITY. 113 

Noah first asked it. Some answer it in the affirmative, 
some in the negative ; but society will not accept the latter 
answer. Glance over the list of objects for which taxes ar€ 
collected and you will see that to a very large extent every 
man is his brother's keeper. Even if the responsibility 
does not go so far as to require a direct contribution, 
it requires something. Yet the tax-list represents but a 
small part of the claims our fellow-men hav3 upon each 
other. When a demand comes to them in the garb of 
law most people will recognize it more or less willingly: 
it is the claims that carry with them no legal obligation; 
that grow only out of the recognition of a mutual respon- 
sibility which give the genuinely good man the most con- 
cern. A man may strictly observe the statute law yet 
be neither a good man nor a good citizen. We can not 
say of a man who does no more than the law prescribes 
that he does his duty even to this extent; he merely per- 
forms reluctantly a disagreeable task. We repeat then 
that every man is to a greater or less extent his brother's 
keeper whether he wishes to be or not. The question is 
not whether he will assume the responsibility that circum- 
stances place upon him, but how he will discharge that re- 
sponsibility. Will he lift up his brother or will he drag 
him down ? If he is weak, will he aid and strengthen him 
or will he allow him to succumb to his weakness? When 
we study a human being from the intellectual side only 
we must admit that Hamlet was right when he exclaimed, 
"What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! 
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving, how express 
and admirable ! In action how like an angel ! In appre- 
hension, how like a god! The beauty of the world! The 
paragon of animals !" On the other hand it is equally 
true that "man is but a reed, weakest in nature, but a reed 



114 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

that thinks. It needs not that the whole universe should 
arm to crush him, a drop of water is enough to kill him. 
But were the universe to kill him he would still be more 
noble than his slayer because he knows that he dies and 
that the universe has the better of him. The universe 
knows nothing of this.'' On the other hand we may well 
ask: "How was it possible that it should ever enter into 
the thoughts of vain man to believe himself the principal 
part of God's creation, or that all the rest was ordained for 
him, for his service or pleasure? Man, whose follies we 
laugh at every day, or else complain of them, whose plea- 
sures are vanity, and his passions stronger than his rea- 
son : who sees himself every way weak and impotent ; hath 
no power over external nature, little over himself; can not 
execute so much as his own good resolution; mutable, ir- 
regular, prone to evil. Surely, if we made the least reflec- 
tion upon ourselves with impartiality we should be ashamed 
of such an arrogant thought. How few of the sons of men 
for whom they say all things are made are the sons of 
wisdom ! How few find the path of life ! They spend a 
few days in folly and in sin, and then go down to the re- 
gions of death and misery. And is it possible to believe 
that all nature and all providence are only, or principally 
for their sake? Is it not a more reasonable conclusion 
which the prophet hath made, Surely all things are van- 
ity?" In reality both views are true and not inconsistent 
with each other. "Man's two-fold nature is reflected in 
history. He is of earth, but his thoughts are with the 
stars. Mean and petty his wants and desires ; yet they 
serve a soul exalted with grand, glorious aims, with im- 
mortal longings, with thoughts which sweep the heavens 
and wander through eternity! A pigmy standing on the 
outer crust of this planet, his far-reaching spirit stretches 



RESPONSIBILITY. 115 

outward to the infinite, and there alone finds rest. His- 
tory is a reflex of this double life. Every life has two as- 
pects — one calm, broad and solemn — looking towards eter- 
nity; the other agitated, petty, vehement and confused — 
looking towards time." It is true that the fountain of 
human effort sends forth bitter waters and sweet, — a mix- 
ture of that which is pure and refreshing and healthful 
with what is noxious and debilitating and deadly. There is 
abundant evidence of the worth of a man, but the evidence 
of his vileness is almost equally abundant. Yet it is doubt- 
ful if a human being exists that is wholly depraved. No 
doubt every man is more or less selfish. We are all willing 
to let our fellow-men have some of the good things of this 
life, but we are not all of one mind how the division shall 
be made of what is really valuable. Even the wise virgins 
said, "!N"ot so, lest there be not enough for us and you ; 
but go ye and buy for yourselves," when they must have 
known that if their foolish sisters followed their advice 
they could not return in time for the wedding, even if they 
had the wherewithal to purchase. It is hard and oft^n 
impossible to draw the line betw^een selfishness and en- 
lightened self-interest. We too often find that the man 
who has no money is dissatisfied because the man who has a 
dime will not divide with him. He does not stop to con- 
sider whether it is not his own fault that he is penniless. 
Without a certain measure of regard for one's self on the 
part of the great majority of mankind there can be no 
enlightenment. If the experience of the race has proved 
anything it has proved this. No matter how tenaciously 
the miser holds on to what he has acquired during life the 
world at large generally gets the benefit of his accumula- 
tions in the end. He can not take his treasures with him 
when he leaves this world, and if he has not learned how 



IIG WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATIOlSf. 

to keep wisely and spend judiciously while he lives his 
possessions do him little good unless it be in the reflection 
that his heirs will be more far-sighted than he. What- 
ever we may say against avarice, it is after all nothing 
more than a legitimate and healthful passion grown to 
excess. We do not give it a harsh name in its inception 
any more than we designate the wholesome desire for food, 
gluttony. So far as we are able to judge such things the 
richest nations are those among which individual happiness 
is the greatest, and vice versa. The talk of the socialist 
about the equality of opportunity and the right of all to 
an equal share of the good things of this life can not be 
regarded as anything more than idle rant in the mouths 
of those who most use the phrase, especially if these things 
are sought under present conditions. But we can hardly 
refuse to acknowledge that it is a noble aspiration toward 
the realization of which men may approach nearer and 
nearer as the days and the years go by. The rapidity of 
this approach is dependent solely upon the effort, the self- 
denial and the clearly divined purpose of the successive 
generations of men as they come upon the stage of action. 
In spite of the misery in the world ; in spite of the abso- 
lute want; in spite of the unequal division of what are 
called the good things of this life — all of which are pain- 
fully evident almost every day, I am persuaded that the 
world is not only not growing worse, but is improving. 
The poorest man has within his reach many things that 
go to make life agreeable that cost him nothing and which 
his ancestors did not have. No one will deny that we 
might be better off in many things than we are and that 
in not a few regards the times are out of joint; but this 
is something quite different from the charge often made 
that we are going from bad to worse. 



RESPONSIBILITY. , 117 

*'I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs, 
And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of 
the suns.'' 
This purpose is not in the material forces that hold us 
in their pitiless grasp and have not changed since the 
world was created, nor in the intellect of man which has 
not gained in acuteness since the appearance of our first 
ancestor upon the face of the earth; it is in the moral 
forces that are visibly gaining in power and prestige day 
by day. These forces are generated in the mind of the in- 
dividual, but their growth is stimulated by emulation and 
co-operation. There is most progress where there is most 
liberty, properly regulated by law. Communism has 
been tried many times and in a number of different 
places, but it has never prospered. The development of 
human institutions has been steadily away from such a 
condition of things. Only here and there do we find 
a man who is as willing to labor for others as for him- 
self. You can never get many of them together; if 
you could, there would be no sphere of activity in 
which their self-denial could become effective. The self- 
ishness of most men only makes the absence of it the more 
conspicuous in a few. It is the light shining into dark- 
ness, and it is this light that draws the attention and com- 
pels the admiration of men. While in one sense the ten- 
dency of the world for more than a thousand years has 
been to circumscribe the sphere of the individual, in an- 
other and wider sense it has been in the direction of enlarg- 
ing it. There never was so much individual liberty in the 
world as there is now. With the growth of individual lib- 
erty has also grown the spirit of self -activity for the bet- 
terment of society as a whole. While modem states have 
never done so much as they are now doing for the educa- 



118 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

tion of the young to enable them to take care of themselves 
they doing an equal or even greater amount for the care 
of those who are imbecile in mind or body or both. Yet in 
spite of this growth of the spirit of socialism, individual 
initiative and personal exertion have not been in abey- 
ance. Take the case of a single uplifting force, the 
church. Only a short time ago Sir Walter Besant publicly 
stated that fortunately the church was no longer the dead 
thing it was fifty years ago. Speaking particularly of 
London, he continued : "The church is doing an enormous 
amount of good. It has taken a new lease of life. One 
can not overrate its services. A year or two ago I investi- 
gated the matter fully, taking as my field of study a river- 
side parish in the East End. I found there a hundred lay- 
men and women working for nothing under the guidance 
of the clergyman and his curate, visiting the poor, organiz- 
ing services, forming clubs for the boys and girls, mothers' 
meetings and meetings for the sale of clothing at very 
cheap rates to the poor who would otherwise never have 
been able to buy any clothes at all. There were also a 
creche for the babies and a house where children were 
kept from after school to bedtime. Then there were Sun- 
day schools, excellent for keeping children out of mischief. 
In fact the lives of the clergy in the East End are one long 
round of ceaseless activity. This activity of the church 
has been growing for the last twenty years. Formerly the 
church was indifferent to the poor. I can not give a rea- 
son for this change for the better, I can only testify to its 
existence." The same activity is displayed in other parts 
of the Kingdom and the same or similar agencies are at 
work in every city of the United States. The church has 
not transformed itself by an unconscious sort of biological 
process ; we may be sure that the change was brought about 



RESPONSIBILITY, 119 

by a recognition on the part of its leading spirits that a 
transformation was necessary. 

As to the body politic, we need to remember that it is 
not an association from which we can withdraw at pleas- 
ure as if it were a business concern of which we did not 
like the management or a profession that has become dis- 
tasteful to us. As we are in it to stay, we shall do well 
to make the best of it, or rather, do what we can to make 
it as good as possible. Ko greater misfortune can befall 
a young man than to get "soured on the world," as the 
expression goes. We often hear it said that there are 
tricks in every trade and if you would succeed you must 
learn and practice them. I very much doubt this unless 
3^ou give the term "tricks" a very much milder meaning 
than is usually attached to it. I can, of course, not deny 
that men often succeed by the methods of the heathen 
Chinee, at least they achieve what some persons are wont 
to call success ; but if their example were followed by men 
in general all confidence between man and man would be 
destroyed and civilized society made impossible. The solid 
men of the business world are they whose word is as good 
as their bond. 

We have among us a large amount of literature that 
it is the custom with some to disparage on the ground 
that it smacks of the Sunday school. It is the sort in 
which vice is invariably punished and virtue rewarded. 
There is a deep meaning in this popularity. It is the con- 
crete picture of human life as the human heart desires it 
to be. It represents the ideal state toward which the world 
is striving, however slow its approach may be. It is the 
silent but powerful voice of mankind in its best estate 
pleading through the pen of the literary artist for the re- 
ward of Virtue and the punishment of Vice. When the 



120 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

conditions are reversed violence is done to man's better 
nature;, to the universal conscience. Consider the case for 
a moment and you will see that almost the entire body of 
modern fiction does homage to this longing of our nature*. 
In real life the result is often different, but in imaginative 
literature rarely. No English writer has enjoyed such 
long-continued and unbounded popularity as Scott. The 
thought that runs like a thread of gold through all his 
writings may be fitly expressed in the words, Virtue and 
Vice always get their deserts. The same statement is 
true in almost equal measure of Dickens and Thackeray 
and George Eliot and a host of others, all of whom seek 
to enlist our sympathies for the good and arouse our de- 
testation of the bad. Even when strength triumphs over 
weakness; vice over virtue; wrong over right, the reader 
almost always feels that he would rather be the vanquished 
than the victor. It is the voluntary choice of the human 
heart when unbiased and unpolluted by the selfishness that 
so often makes its power felt in the actual world. We take 
much greater pleasure in Ihe study of life as we wish it to 
be than as it is. We involuntarily recognize the goal 
toward which the actions of men ought to be directed. 

Yet something more is necessary to success than mere 
honesty, in fact a great deal more. Honesty is indeed 
fundamental, but to these must be joined tact, common 
sense, a willingness to deny one's self a good many things 
which it would be pleasant to possess, and industry. It is 
not hard for a judicious observer to see why some very good 
people do not get along. In spite of their virtues those 
who know them have no confidence in them. While al- 
ways moved with the best intentions, they lack some im- 
portant qualifications and others who are morally less 
worthy outstrip them in the race of life. It would clearly 



RESPONSIBILITY. 121 

be a perversion of the truth to say that inefficiency in such 
cases is sjraonymous with uprightness, or that such per- 
sons were failures because they were too honest. Besides, 
it is natural for men to feel a certain degree of satisfac- 
tion in the manifestation of pov«rer. We involuntarily ad- 
mire the man who does things, who accomplishes his pur- 
poses, even when the means he employs do not meet our ap- 
proval nor the ends aimed at commend themselves to our 
moral sense. A negative man, one who always stands on 
the defensive, who is never aggressive, may be a good man, 
but he is rarely of much use in the community. But the 
number of persons who are so constructed that they may 
flagrantly disregard the rules of right and yet achieve^ suc- 
cess in any calling is very small. 

A lucid writer in a very recent work gives expression to 
his conviction in the following language. "Morality"— 
meaning by this term moral conduct in its widest sense — 
"is a necessity of social life. The relations of human be- 
ings to each other are organic, and conduct must be regu- 
lated to some degree by every one with reference to others. 
Under the pressure of the social situation of mankind, 
ideals of duty grow and a moral sensibility is developed. 
As this sense increases in power, it tends more and more 
to dominate the whole mental nature and to control con- 
duct; that which is right is approved and that which is 
wrong is repugnant. The moral consequences of actions 
are regarded closely and educational influences become of 
importance. Moral men and women please and the im- 
moral are displeasing. Our sympathies are with the right- 
eous and our aspirations are toward moral ideals." 

It needs to be constantly kept in mind that the world's 
estimate of what constitutes success is often a wrong one. 
It looks for visible, tangible and immediate results, when 



122 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION, 

in fact the most abiding results are the slowest to make 
themselves felt. How many thousands of men have lived 
who were regarded as great in their day who were soon ut- 
terly forgotten by almost everybody ! It does not after all 
matter very much, if we are conscious of doing our best, 
whether we are appreciated or not. Men of large views 
and keen penetration are always ahead of their time. It 
is an unfortunate weakness to be always on the lookout for 
praise. If men never took a step in advance of public 
opinion for fear of arousing some one's displeasure there 
would be no progress. Some of the most important public 
measures and not a few of the world's greatest benefactors 
have encountered the most violent opposition. On the 
other hand few persons, especially among the young, can 
resist the seductions of praise. In truth, however, censure 
is far less dangerous, and he is a wise man who heeds even 
if he can not allow himself to be influenced by it. Popu- 
larity is mere surface valuation. The great mass of man- 
kind do not care to go deeper. It is only the thinking 
man, the careful student in a large way that can distin- 
guish between what is really good and what seems so. 

It is a common mistake to underestimate the important 
part the individual, even the one who seems the most in- 
significant, may contribute to the general welfare and 
progress of the community. Suppose it were possible to 
make every member of ever so small a social organism feel 
that the reputation of the whole for honesty and fair- 
dealing depended on him alone, what a step forward that 
would be! Suppose that every scholar in any particular 
school could be made to realize that its good name de- 
pended on his conduct and studiousness, how quickly it 
would become a light that would shine near and far ! There 
are not many men who are endowed or entrusted with ten 



RESPONSIBILITY. 123 

talents; there are more who have in their keeping five 
talents, and many more , who have one. How important 
then that all the men of one talent should consider ear- 
nestly how to make the best of it! There are so many 
ways in which the good of the little community of which 
most of us are a part, may be promoted. This is not done 
by waiting for great opportunities that rarely present 
themselves, but by improving the small ones that so often 
€ome in our way. Maydole, the celebrated hammer-maker, 
once said to James Parton, "I have made hammers here 
for twenty-eight years." "Well," said Parton, "you ought 
to make a pretty good hammer." "No, sir," was the reply, 
"I never make a pretty good hammer. I make the best 
hammer in the United States." And buyers had long be- 
fore endorsed his statement. The president of the Cam- 
bria rail works, one of the largest concerns of the kind in 
the world, being asked the secret of the enormous develop- 
ment of their business, replied, "We have no secret. We 
always try to beat our last batch of rails." 

But there are so few people who are really anxious to 
do their best. The great majority want to be taken at 
their own estimate of themselves, and when they find that 
this is not done they are dissatisfied and are ready to de- 
clare that success in this world is all a matter of chance. I 
do not wish to deny that there is such a thing as luck, but 
it finds very few people, and rarety, if ever, those who are 
waiting to be found. 

While it is true that there is most progress where there 
is most liberty, and therefore the trend of events is favor- 
able to democracy, we need to beware of trusting too much 
to government or indeed to institutions of any sort that 
exist only on paper. What is theoretically the best gov- 
ernment in the world may in practice be the worst. Every 



124 WISDOM A2fD WILL IN EDUCATION. 

organization is what its members make it. It depends 
upon the temper of the individual. It is important, there- 
fore that the individual be enlightened in order that the 
entire community be enlightened. This necessity is being 
more and more felt everywhere ; hence the abundant means 
in our day for promoting general intelligence. But what 
use shall be made of these means again depends upon the 
individual. We often hear it said that the progress of a 
country depends very largely upon its colleges and uni- 
versities. To what extent this is true rests wholly upon 
the spirit with which they are managed. Russia and 
Spain and even Turkey and China have their universities; 
as well as Germany and England and the United States. 
Yet I am not aware that they contribute anything worth 
mentioning to the progress of these countries. They are 
rather the strongholds of the conservatism that is so fatal 
to progress and of those nations that look to the past rather 
than to the future. The spirit of the higher education 
is the spirit of the nations that foster it. If you want 
a tree or a shrub to grow luxuriantly and healthfully you 
must plant it in a fertile soil and allow the rain and the 
light to fall upon it. Sometimes it may be advisable to 
protect it against adverse atmospheric conditions; but 
too much protection will defeat the very ends you aim at. 
The same is true of education. It needs to be wisely di- 
rected from above, but not cramped by too much regula- 
tion. It needs to be fostered by governments, but not ham- 
pered by them with too many and too minute regulations. 
The same is true of the church. It can do nothing or 
next to nothing by the mere fact of its organized existence. 
It needs life, it needs direction and above all things its 
members need to be permeated by a wholesome and pro- 
gressive impulse that is always looking for something that 



RESPONSIBILITY. 125 

will make the world better. The most intelligent educa- 
tors of our time, and indeed of all time, insist on the su- 
perlative importance of developing and strengthening the 
self-activity of every child in order that conduct in after 
life may be wisely directed toward useful ends. We do 
not surrender our individuality when we make up our 
minds to submit to wise leadership; but we ought to un- 
derstand clearly whither we are led and by what means. 

They only are free whom the truth makes free. What 
precious word liberty is ! How men have fought for it 
and suffered for it and died for it! How they have en- 
dured chains and darkness and misery for themselves in 
the hope that those who came after them might enjoy its 
blessings ! There is probably no ideal good for which men 
have so valiantly striven as for liberty. 

No one will deny that we have this blessing in abun- 
dance. We have all the liberty we can use, all the liberty 
we can ever hope for, but few know how to make the most 
of it. Here is a lesson we have yet to learn. It seems 
that the great majority of mankind is so constructed that 
it must have masters. If they are not born under one 
they soon make one for themselves; and so it comes that 
many barter away by their own choice or in ignorance the 
birthright which is the open sesame to all that makes hu- 
man life worth living. If the diffusion of knowledge can 
teach men anything it must teach them the right use of 
liberty. It must teach every man to think for himself, 
to act for himself — in short to make the best possible use 
of his manhood, not merely for himself but for others. 

Probably every thoughtful person is at times attacked 
with a feeling of despondency. There is a good deal of a 
certain kind of pessimism in the social atmosphere. It is 
not necessarily an imwholesome feeling, nor do I believe 



126 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

that characters of coarse fiber are subject to it. It usually 
arises in minds constituted like that of Hamlet, of whom 
a recent critic says, "Intellectually and morally he is much 
in advance of his age his mind casting far onward to an 
era of purer, richer, brighter civilization. He conceives a 
mold of statesmanship, a style of public order, and a tone 
of social converse, such as the times afford no example of. 
The coarse and brutal manners of his nation, infecting 
even the court, he both scorns and deplores, and this on 
grounds of taste, of policy, of honor and of right. And 
the effects which such things have on national character 
and well being are discoursed by him with rare discern- 
ment and reach of thought. His mind is indeed pene- 
trated with the best efficacies of Christian morality and 
refinement." When we find ourselves in the clutches of a 
feeling of discouragement we will do well to remember 
several things. We are not responsible for the affairs of 
this world or for any considerable portion of them, but 
only in some measure for that small part that comes within 
the circle of our influence. Perhaps our aspirations are 
not as unselfish as we would like to make ourselves believe. 
Those who oppose us or are indifferent or disagree with us 
are sometimes at least just as unselfish as we are. I am 
persuaded, too, that the larger our knowledge the more thor- 
ough our acquaintance with the past, the less reason we 
have for discouragement. I have great faith in honest and 
fearless self-examination. St. Paul enunciated a great 
truth when he wrote to the Corinthians: "Examine your- 
selves, prove yourselves," and, ^'Let a man examine him- 
self." 'The greatest of all moral philosophers used to say 
to his friends that an unexamined life was not worth liv- 
ing; and he always strove to regulate his conduct by the 
best light he had. In fact he made his whole life a study 



RESPONSIBILITY. 127 

of this, to him, all-absorbing question. Whenever a life 
is not guided by reason and controlled by the will it sinks 
to the level of that of the brute. , 

Wliile almost every adult, especially in a democracy, is in 
some respects responsible for the conduct of his fellow-men, 
he is in a much larger degree responsible for his own. 
Neither God nor man expects anybody to do what is beyond 
his power, but both have a right to expect us to do our best 
and not only to live up to the measure of the light we have, 
but always to seek for more. Goethe's last words, "More 
light,*' make an excellent motto to put before ourselves at 
the beginning of our lives to be kept before ourselves al- 
ways. We ought to be unsparing critics of ourselves, — 
more unsparing than of anybody else. Only by being such 
can we continue to grow in knowledge and wisdom to the 
end of our earthly existence. Wisdom is the principal 
thing and wisdom is acquired only by that careful observa- 
tion and experience that we ought to incorporate into our 
earthly existence. I once heard a man say : "Don't tell 
me what I was; tell me what I am." The justness of his 
remark has impressed me more and more the longer I have 
meditated upon it. But it has no meaning for those who 
in early life become confirmed and fixed in their modes of 
thought, whether they be good or evil. He is a rare man 
who can listen dispassionately to a disagreeable truth when 
it affects himself, his friends or his country. How often 
has it happened that men have vigorously and even pas- 
sionately defended measures which they had denounced 
with equal heat when advocated by their opponents. See 
how King David's anger flared up against the man who 
had been guilty of the abominable deed which Nathan re- 
ported to him, little thinking that he was uttering his own 
death-warrant when he said : "As the Lord liveth, the man 



128 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

that hath done this thing shall surely die." "The grandeur 
of man^s nature turns to insignificance all outward dis- 
tinction. His power of intellect, of love, of knowing God, 
of perceiving the beautiful, of acting on his own mind, on 
outward nature and on his fellow-creatures, — ^these are hia 
glorious prerogatives. Through the vulgar error of under- 
valuing what is common, we are apt, indeed, to pass them 
by as of little worth. But as in the outward creation, so in 
the soul, the common is the most precious. Science and 
art may invent splendid modes of illuminating the apart- 
ments of the opulent ; but these are all poor and worthless 
compared with the light which the sun sends into our win- 
dows which he pours impartially over hill and valley, 
which kindles daily the eastern and western sky; and so 
the common light of reason, and conscience, and love, are 
of more worth and dignity than the rare endowments which 
give celebrity to a few." 

In most of the more ancient cities of the Old World 
stand churches and cathedrals that were erected many cen- 
turies ago. Of but a few the architects who planned and 
builded them are known by name, while the thousands who 
carried out their grand conceptions are long since buried 
in oblivion. But their works are the beautiful and abiding 
symbol of the faith of those who conceived and erected 
them. They are the visible and tangible expression of that 
belief in a higher power that is common to all mankind; 
and of the faith that mortal men are the chosen instru- 
ments through which its designs are executed. They are 
mute but eloquent witnesses to the universal conviction 
that our life and our labor should at least in part be de- 
voted to the spiritual good of the generations yet unborn. 
The lowliest and weakest mortal who did no more than 
contribute a single stone to their solid walls contributed 



RESPONSIBILITY. 129 

somewhat to their strength and symmetry — something 
without which they would have lacked entire completeness. 
So it is the high privilege of every one of us to exert some 
influence without which the world would not be quite 
what it is. Happy, thrice happy are they of whom it can 
be truthfully said what was said of the woman of Bethany : 
"She hath wrought a good work; she hath done what she 
could.'' 



PATKIOTISM AND PAETISANSHIP. 

"History must not keep silent because history is the con- 
science of humanity ; and let those understand who do not 
fear it that its justice can not be appeased and that its 
castigations are without end." These words were used by 
the late eminent publicist Castelar in a comment upon one 
of the worst kings that ever sat upon the Spanish throne, 
but they are of universal validity. No one who has care- 
fully studied the past will deny their truthfulness. His- 
tory is nothing more than amplified biography and those 
who made it were men of like passions with ourselves. It 
is more truly the conscience of the world than the con- 
science which every man is supposed to carry in his bosom. 
I may intentionally wrong my neighbor and succeed in 
justifying my conduct. At any rate it is but an incident 
between two individuals and is soon forgotten. When my 
father of my grandfather has, by any act, left a stain 
upon his memory, though I can not blot it out, I may ex- 
cuse it as well as I can. But that does not alter the case; 
the deed is done, the final record made up, the books are 
sealed. Still, this is not a matter about which the larger 
public is concerned. But when I move into a wider sphere 
and see weighed before the tribunal of morals the acts for 
which my country is responsible I can neither conceal nor 

(130) 



PATRIOTISM AND PARTISANSHIP. 131 

successfully justify what is wrong. The evil deeds in 
which I am, at least by implication, a participant, can not 
be concealed from the curious eye of the future investi- 
gator. My ancestors, my government, my country were 
guilty of wrongs that I may condone but the disinterested 
reader will not. There exist archives centuries old to 
wliich even at this late day no one is allowed access. Their 
custodians seem to feel that they are involved in the guilt 
of the evil-doers, though they are connected with them by 
the slenderest ties, perhaps only by the bond of a common 
creed or a common country. It is like the mature man 
trying to cover up the sins and follies of his youth, though 
it is much more unavailing. 

Nearly two thousand years ago Plutarch justified the 
calamities that sometimes befell states for the wicked deeds 
of previous generations. Said he, "The public calamities 
of states have obviously their reason in justice. For a 
state has unity and continuity like a living creature, not 
divesting itself of indentity by the changes that occur at 
successive periods of its life, nor becoming a different being 
from its former self by the lapse of time, but always retain- 
ing a conscious selfhood with the peculiarities that be- 
long to it, and receiving the entire blame or praise of 
whatever it does or has done in its collective capacity, so 
long as the community which constitutes it and binds it 
together remains a unit. But dividing it by successive 
periods of time so as to make of a single state many states, 
or rather an infinite number of states, is like making one 
man many men, because he is now elderly, yet was once 
younger and still earlier was a stripling. The state re- 
maining the same we regard it as involved in the disgrace 
of its ancestry by the very right by which it shares their 
glory and their power." 



132 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

Every man instinctively feels that he is more or less 
closely bound np in moral sense with his family, with 
the community of which he forms a part, with the govern- 
m.ent of which he is a citizen. When I hold up to an in- 
telligent Englishman, the shortsightedness of his govern- 
ment at certain periods of the past, or to a wide-awake 
Frenchman the follies that have characterized his ances- 
tors in their mad quest for what they called gloire, or to 
a well-read Teuton the pusillanimity of the German people 
for centuries, they usually admit the truth of the indict- 
ment, but they have a ready answer by pointing to the po- 
litical corruption that has hung over our land like a pall 
for nobody knows how long; to our frequent lynchings; 
to our repudiation of state and municipal debts; to our 
toleration of human slavery for a century; to our unjust 
war with Mexico, and more of the same sort. Then I have 
little to say, but I can heartily join with my interlocutors 
in the wish that these things were none of them so. Or 
we may all join in the pharisaical congratulation that we 
are not so bad as the Spaniards, or the Turks, or as a last 
resort, the Malays. Under such circumstances one is 
often inclined to take refuge in the philosophy of the Arab, 
who, when charged with being a notorious thief and un- 
mitigated liar, retorted that if a man had only two or three 
faults he was not very bad. Let us not forget that na- 
tional glory will not take the place of national character. 
The former may and is pretty sure to be transient if not 
founded on the latter. The true glory of a nation is not 
something that needs to be boasted of. For centuries 
Frenchmen have been asserting that France marches at 
the head of civilization. They were so conscious of their 
superiority that they did not think it worth while to ex- 
amine what their neighbors were doing and refused to 



PATRIOTISM AND PARTISANSHIP. 133 

learn anything from them. But the time came when they 
were disillusioned, and m their blind rage they blamed 
ever3^body but them.selves for their discomfiture. 

In this discussion it is permissible to draw a parallel be- 
tween a nation and an individual. What do his neighbors 
think of a man who prates much about his integrity ? The 
simplest characters are the least boastful. The man who 
is conscious of his probity neither parades the fact in 
public nor feels the need of asserting it in private. 

Just now the leading nations of the earth have much to say 
about new duties and new responsibilities. It is at least a 
suspicious coincidence that their duties and responsibilities 
are so closel}^ connected with commercialism. The man 
who really wants to do good is never particularly careful 
whether he gets paid for it in dollars and cents. Let us 
not forget that the ethical code rests on a few very simple 
and easily understood principles, whether we apply it to 
individuals or nations. Men may flatter themselves that 
they live under a new dispensation and that old-fashioned 
morality is obsolete. All history demonstrates the falsity 
of this position. The whole duty of man to man may 
be found in pre-Christian literature. In the Prophet 
Micah I find, "What doth the Lord require of thee but to 
do justl}^ to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God.'' 
So, too, we often read that "Eighteousness exalteth a na- 
tion, but sin is a reproach to any people." Isaiah says the 
same thing; and never tires of warning those who neg- 
lect these principles. Socrates follows in the same strain, 
as do many others, each in ignorance of the existence of 
the other, because they need only to observe the course 
of human events to deduce the moral order of the world. 
Justice, humanity, humility— here we have the whole duty 
of man. In fact we may say that all civilization rests in 



134 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

the persistent effort of man to secure justice. It is at least 
avowedly for the purpose of securing justice to every mem- 
ber of the body politic that all enlightened governments are 
organized — justice in taxation, justice in meting out re- 
wards and punishments, justice in representation, justice 
in the care of those who are not able to take care of them- 
selves, justice in the privilege to worship the Supreme Be- 
ing. No sane man asks more than equality of opportunity, 
a fair field and no favor. Governments have followed each 
other like the divisions of an almost endless procession of 
mourners across the stage of time because they have failed 
in this regard. What has happened so many times will con- 
tinue to happen as long as man remains the same and like 
causes produce like effects. Onl}' that nation may safely 
claim to be built on an enduring foundation whose civil 
machinery is so constructed to bring it constantly nearer 
and nearer to that ideal condition that is realized only in 
the vision of the prophet and the dream of the sage. So 
profound is the universal conviction of the essential up- 
rightness of public opinion that no man in his public ca- 
pacity has the courage to defy it. The most pronounced 
despots have justified their tyranny by a liberal patronage 
of the arts and sciences, by the plea that the masses are 
not fit to govern themselves. Sienkiewicz in Quo Vadis 
thus pays tribute to the natural goodness of man : "Bronze- 
beard is a faint-hearted cur. Although there is no limit 
to his power, he makes all his acts appear plausible. I 
have often asked myself why is it that every crime, be it 
as great as Ceasar's and as certain of impunity, seeks the 
cover of the law, of justice or of virtue? Why should it 
trouble itself ? Nero seeks to justify himself because he is 
a coward. But let us take a Tiberius. He was no coward, 
yet he sought to justify his every act. Why, then? What 



PATRIOTISM AND PARTISANSHIP. 135 

is this involuntary tribute which evil places at the feet 
of virtue ? Knowest thou what I think ? It is done because 
vice is disgusting and virtue divine." We used to hear 
slavery defended because it was good for the slave. Now 
we are told that immense armaments are conducive to 
peace. I venture to assert that no law was ever enacted 
for which its promoters did not claim that if it worked 
injury to some it benefited a greater number. It is no 
longer contended by anybody, so far as I know, that a 
state of belligerency is natural to men, or that it repre- 
sents a condition upon which all first-class nations are 
not making continual inroads. This is unconsciously ad- 
mitted by the assertion which we meet so often that the 
best v/ay to secure permanent peace is to be always pre- 
pared for war. Apparently hardly anybody wants to fight 
though almost everybody is in favor of preparing for it. 
The tendency toward a more peaceful civilization is 
marked. Eome was almost continuously at war during the 
thousand years of her existence. Insignificant as many 
of these wars were they always meant a great deal of miser}^ 
for at least one of the belligerents. The eighteenth cen- 
tury was ushered in by war, passed out in war, and the 
middle period was filled with "the din of arms." How 
different the nineteenth ! When we remember that the 
Napoleonic struggle was an inheritance of the preceding 
century we must admit that the one just closed was much 
less bloody than any that preceded it, far as we still are 
from a reign of peace and righteousness. 

Why should men be more unreasonable collectively than 
individually? Yet they are. In any civilized country 
when two men undertake to settle their differences with 
weapons or fists they are promptly arrested and fined. 
Usually it is the soggy undercrust that has recourse to vio- 



136 WISDOM A}\W WILL IN EDUCATION, i 

lence. With what contempt we view even the elite in 
some of our States who are ever ready to adjust their dif- 
ferences by physical force or it may be with revolvers. It 
is a pity we can not all read as often as once a year Bacon's 
essay on the idols of pre-conceived opinion. Such a pe- 
rusal would do much to enable our mental vision to pen- 
etrate the mists of error that constantly surround us. Or 
we may change the figure and say that if these idols were 
taken away we should have a clearer vision to worship the 
true God. About us and in us are the idols of the tribe, 
the fallacies that are incident to humanity in general ; idols 
of the den, the misconceptions that grow out of our indi- 
vidual mental constitution; idols of the market place, er- 
rors due to the power of words and phrases; idols of the 
theater, errors due to false systems and illogical methods 
of reasoning. When we remember that some men are so 
constituted that, with the best intention, thy can not see 
the truth, — to ask them to do so is like asking a five-foot 
man to look over a six-foot wall — and that others do not 
want to see it because of the labor involved, or because 
they believe it more to their advantage to cling to error 
and that these classes embrace the immense majority of 
mankind, we can not wonder that the world is still largely 
dominated by error and false reasoning. 

But, leaving aside all considerations of the quest for 
truth, how many people are there even in the most enlight- 
ened countries who devote any considerable portion of their 
time to reflection upon what will make them wiser, better 
nobler? Surely these are matters that would seem to at- 
tract and occupy the attention of all more or less. That it 
does not is because it is easier to persist in the old, much 
as we may complain about it, than to keep readjusting our- 
selves to new conditions. We thoughtlessly do what wc 



PATRIOTISM AND PARTISANSHIP. 137 

have always done; and what we have alwaj-s done is what 
oiir elders did before ns. If we are a little better in some 
things than other people we lay the flattering unction to 
our souls that we are in all respects their superiors. 

Some of the very persons who have only scorn and con- 
tempt for the people of those countries or States of the 
Union who readily resort to arms when they have a dis- 
pute with another man will almost in the same breath 
hurrah over the prospect of war between the United States 
and some foreign country^ especially Great Britain. When 
we ask them for the cause of their hilarit}^ they can give 
no reason except that we can "lick" England and all crea- 
tion and we want a chance to prove it. We can settle our 
private difficulties before courts of law and we scoff at those 
of our neighbors who can not settle theirs in the same way; 
yet many of us do not want to adjust our disagreements in 
this manner when we have a quarrel with another nation^, 
though it may speak the same language, be proud of the 
same political traditions, and lay claim to the same litera- 
ture. 

It is true a court of law is not exactly a peaceful tribunal 
like a court of arbitration. Behind it is in most cases 
physical force as a last resort, but this is always in the 
background. Moral force has in most instances taken its 
place. And what an advance is a court of law upon con- 
ditions that prevailed very widely at one time. Gentlemen 
settled their disputes by strength and skill. Perish the 
thought that they could be settled in any other way. Yet 
these honorable men have almost disappeared from the 
earth and will soon be little more than a curiosity or an 
object of ridicule. 

All history is but the history of civilization. This is 
a hard term to define, yet everj^body knows what it signi- 



138 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

iies. iSTot only is it a struggle of the more advanced peo- 
ple against the less advanced, but of the conservative indi- 
vidual against progress. We see it in our cities and our 
towns no less than among the nations of the earth. The 
tenement house problem is but one of its phases. The 
legal principle of eminent domain is another, and there are 
many more. The lust of conquest that led the Eomane to 
add province to province is as active now as it ever was. If 
they provided a better government than they destroyed 
their course w^as in a measure at least Justifiable. But it 
is doubtful if the lust of conquest is ever a moral motive, 
though it almost always parades under a masque of moral- 
ity. The Eomans did not conquer provinces, they only 
gave them peace. The Spaniards and the French, their de- 
scendants, coveted new lands in order that they might con- 
vert the heathen to Christianity. The Anglo-Saxon and 
the Teuton are a little more matter of fact, but they rarely 
admit that conquest is for the good of the conquerors 
mainly. All this proves the innate faith the world has 
always had in moral ideas. Even in private transactions 
between man and man the party of the first part never ad- 
mits that he seeks his own advantage only. He would have 
it appear that he gives more than he takes. 

It is by political methods that moral ideas are propa- 
gated. They can not move forward alone. Security to 
life and property is a political guarantee whether at home 
or abroad. This guaranty is often unjust but it is sound. 
How can we justify the protection afforded to a merchant 
or a missionary by the home government in a foreign land 
where he is not wanted? Why do we blame the Chinese 
for keeping their ports closed to Europeans and why do 
we regard it as creditable to them that after centuries of ef- 
fort they opened a few? You find the sentiment in every 



PATRIOTISM AND PARTISANSHIP. 139 

country of the world only not quite so pronounced. This is 
the practical side of politics, but the converse and senti- 
mental sides demand for every man equal treatment with 
every other. Our Federal and State courts forbid the pas- 
sage of laws that are not of general application, but in 
practice we have many such laws. Here sentiment and 
practice are again in conflict and here, too, there is a steady 
effort to reconcile them. It is a common saying that 
facts and events are more powerful than theories. Those 
who reason thus have a short vision. If this were true 
we might well exclaim, "Eight forever on the scaffold. 
Wrong forever on the throne.^' See how this dictum has 
been proven false ! Might has indeed often prevailed over 
right, but it has not continued unless it justified itself. 
Slavery and serfdom have not been abolished wholly or 
even chiefly by might, but by the sentiment of mankind 
The theory of equal rights before the law was for centuries 
the main support of the Eoman Empire. Governments 
are at last beginning to put in practice the theories of edu- 
cation advocated by Greek thinkers and demonstrated by 
a few individuals. For centuries the civilized world, the 
most civilized nations have been trying to make real the 
ethical theories preached by the Hebrew prophets and the 
Christian Apostles. How little the Jews have figured in 
the politics of the world, how large in its morals, what an 
epic is their annals ! What a mark they have made in his- 
tory and are still making, but it is through the arts of 
peace. No people have so profoundly influenced the 
thought of the world as the}^, none can boast of such endur- 
ing achievements, yet these achievements have almost all 
been peaceful. "In order to get rid of war we must make 
peace heroic." The chief glory of Washington was not so 
much that he was first in war but first in peace. The 



14:0 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

"strenuous life'' of which we have been hearing so much 
may be spent in activities less dashing but not less useful 
than in fighting. Nations willingly pay enormous sums for 
war — why should they not be even more willing to pay 
as much to maintain peace ? It is not idle to speculate on 
what might have been the course of history if the alterna- 
tives of past events are used as lessons for the future. 
What might we not do, what might not any people have 
done, if their youth could have been made to believe in 
the strenuous self-denial, the splendid patience, the mu- 
tual reliance, the daring, the endurance, the honor that go 
to make a nation great in its internal resources. If the 
man who makes two blades of grass grow where one grew 
before is a public benefactor, surely he is equally so who 
makes one blade go twice as far as it went before in all 
that pertains to the welfare of a nation. In our impulsive- 
ness the spectacular appeals to us too strongly. "Heroic ac- 
tivity makes instant appeal. To do away with war we 
have got to make the sacrifice of peace equally noble. 
Mothers, teachers, preachers, poets have got to strengthen 
the new ideals that some men have always cherished and 
most men cherish even now in their calmer moments. 
Common life must be shown to be just as heroic and just 
as arduous as war, calling for just as great physical en- 
durance, just as powerful mental and moral qualities.'^ 
"If the past is not to bind us, where can duty lie? We 
should have no law but the inclination of the moment." 

It has been said over and over again that the reason why 
China makes no progress is because her people have no 
sentiment, no ideals, nothing before them or behind them 
except the plain dead prose of practical every day life. 
The Chinaman of one province does not care what his fel- 
low in the next province is doing or suffering, so he him- 



PATRIOTISM AND PARTISANSHIP. 141 

self has enough to eat. A most competent authority says : 
"The only Chinese in the Empire who arp alert, inquiring, 
eager to know what the world is doing, and especially what 
China and the rulers of Peking are thinking of, are the 
converts, — that is, the pupils of the missionaries or of those 
intelligent foreigners who have some other care concern- 
ing the Chinese servants than mere exaction of labor and 
paym.ent of wages. Out of Chinese official life or from the 
literati it seems impossible to get honesty or virtue in any 
vital sense. The earnest, the thinking men of China know 
that her vital lack is neither capital nor machinery, but 
men. They realize that the Chinese system does not pro- 
duce men of conscience or of sterling character. They 
know that it has hitherto been impossible to secure any 
such persons, except by importation. How can it be other- 
wise in the future?" In the same connection another 
WTiter, speaking of Morocco, says: "It is a popular cus- 
tom of travelers to disparage missionaries. Let their work 
be difficult, their faith a mockery to those who share it not, 
their object hopeless, their achievement insignificant, or. 
it may be, illusory, their faults apparent, their methods 
absurd; the missionaries, of whatever creed, are the noble 
few who live for the future, and no seed that they sow If 
lost. Every pure and earnest life, whether by a missionarv 
or by any other, will tell on the nation." 

It is an established fact that the lower forms of animaJ 
life which first appeared on our globe have all disappeared 
or have been greatly modified in their structure to suit the 
changing physical conditions. Even those that belonged 
to a somewhat higher order have for the most part become 
extinct. The huge beasts, strong of limb and irresistible 
in physical force that are the wonder of our museums, 
destroyed or devoured the weaker ones until they them- 



142 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

selves were cleared from the face of the earth by forces 
too strong for them. With all their strength they could 
not arrest the physical changes that were inevitable. Un- 
able to suit themselves to circumstances they paid the debt 
of nature. With men the course of events has been simi- 
lar. They followed into the dark recesses of oblivion 
the beasts with which successive generations contended. 
The mighty empires of the earth that were in the course of 
time established form no exception. Force was swept 
from the earth by greater force, for especially in the 
psychic world it is not force unaided by intelligence that 
wins in the end. The great states of antiquity were strong 
so long as they represented power that could be hurled 
against weaker rivals, who were in turn either crushed or 
absorbed. We are scarcely in position to say why those 
mighty empires that once existed in Mesopotamia and the 
Nile 'Valley have so completely disappeared. And while 
we may regret the destruction of so many valuable works 
of art it is doubtful if anything of real use to the human 
race has perished. They represent the degradation of man 
rather than his elevation, Greece stood for a higher tjrpe 
of civilization, but a lower type of patriotism and her 
statement looked so closely to the immediate future that 
they failed to recognize the claims of a remoter future. 
The Romans were wiser, and yet not much wiser. As long 
as they considered the state more important than the indi- 
vidual they kept growing stronger and stronger. There 
was an idealism in their politics that We of to-day can not 
help but admire. Yet this condition of things likewise 
passed away. Factions were generated in the state that 
were more bent upon the destruction of their opponents 
than upon the good of the citizens as a whole. 

If there is one thing that modem research has estab- 



PATRIOTISM AND PARTISANSHIP. 14,3 

lished beyond a doubt it is the solidarity of history. We 
may for convenience speak of Ancient History and Medi- 
aeval History and Modern History, but the making of his- 
tory is a continuous process. No new forces have been 
introduced in the world ; the relations of the various forces 
have to some extent been changed, but no new ones have 
been added. Just as the adult is not something radically 
different from the child, though he bears to it only the 
slightest resemblance in feature, form and figure, so the 
race is to-day what it always has been. Sometimes when 
a man is dead an autopsy reveals that fact that his dis- 
ease was incurable. There was no human help for the 
victim. x\s an individual, with his separate physical ex- 
istence he could draw no support from his fellow-beings. 
But how often has it happened that physicians in learning 
the cause of one man's death discovered how to save those 
similarly afflicted ! Not so with states. They have never 
died of physical but of moral diseases, and the fact that 
we know the causes ought to admonish us to look to our- 
selves. The Hebrew prophets foretold the woes that were 
sure to come upon their nation unless they changed their 
ways. But the men who for the most part managed af- 
fairs ignored these solitary theorists. They probably said, 
if they thought them worthy of consideration at all, "You 
are idealists; this is a practical world. You must take 
men as they are." Woe to the world if this be so ! If all 
the efforts to make men better by instructing the rising 
generation ends in the maxim, 'TTou must take men as they 
are," our doom is sealed. 

Everybody that can read knows something about Demos- 
thenes and Cicero. Both these men were victims of a lost 
cause. But in one respect they were superior, and in one 
only, to the great orators among their countrjnmen; in the 



144 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

moral earnestness that pervades their political orations. 
Edmund Burke was likewise the champion of a lost cause 
when he espoused the side of the American colonies. His 
plea for rights for justice^ for fair treatment^ passed al- 
most unheeded, but time has vindicated the wisdom of his 
course. I imagine there are few Englishmen to-day who 
would not rather have stood with Burke and Chatham, and 
lost, than with George III. and Lord North, though they 
won for the time being. In speaking of these events a re- 
cent English historian says: "The shame of the darkest 
hour of English history lies wholly at the door'^ of the 
king. There are two senses in which we may use the 
maxim. You must take world as it is. In the one we sim- 
ply accept the situation and regard existing conditions 
with indifference. Like the servile herd that flattered the 
basest of the Eoman emperors, and their numerous repre- 
sentatives in later times, we may do the best we can to 
live at ease from day to day, taking no thought for the fu- 
ture. In the other, we recognize surrounding conditions, 
but keep bestirring ourselves to make them better. This 
is the purpose of every moral agency that has for its ob- 
ject the betterment of men. It is the soul and essence of 
pedagog}^ Amplified, it applies to the body politic the 
sam.e principles that right instruction applies to the child. 
Every intelligently constructed educational system means, 
Take the child and make of him the best of which he is 
capable. So instruct him that each generation shall be 
better, wiser, nobler, than its predecessor. Teach him to 
obey existing laws and to labor for the enactment of better 
ones. Let him strive to defend his own rights and to ac- 
cord the same rights to others. 

We often hear a defense of the maxim, "'My country 
right or wrong." What are we to understand by my coun- 



PATRIOTISM AND PARTISANSHIP. 145 

try in this sense? Is it her institutions,, her policy, her 
standard of morals, her laws ? If so, who is responsible for 
them? Is not every thinking man dissatisfied more or 
less with his country ? Is any one so well satisfied that he 
does not criticize and seek to make improvements ? If im- 
provements are not held to be necessary the country has 
come to a standstill like China. True patriotism consists 
not so much in maintaining that we have the best and are 
the best as in an open mind for what is good and a deter- 
mination to have it. There is a kind of patriotism that is 
a sign of decay; it is evidence that the career of a nation 
is drawing to a close. The golden age of Greek oratory 
was an era of decline. When there was little to commend 
in the present men looked to the past for examples of hero- 
ism and self-sacrifice. We often see the same sort of pride 
in families. When the generation that is on the scene of 
action is doing little to commend it, its representatives are 
apt to boast about the abilities and achievements of their 
ancestors. Yet what is this worth if there is no disposition 
to do likewise? It seems strange, inexplicably strange, 
that it is so hard to look facts squarely in the face. Dur- 
ing our late war with Spain, Continental Europe was 
against us almost to a man. It was a case of "Kick my 
dog, kick me." The merits of the case scarcely entered 
into the discussion at all. Spain was near by and a mon- 
archy, the United States far away and a Eepublic ; of 
course the latter was in the wrong and it was not worth 
while to look into the merits of the controversy. In four 
cases out of five you can predict with certainty on which 
side the recent South African war a man's sympathies 
were if you know his ancestry. 

We need not go very far into the past to see the melan- 
choly effect of political short-sightedness. Less than four 

10 



146 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION, 

hundred years ago Poland occupied a large place on the 
map of Europe. With its thirty-five million inhabitants 
it was one of the most powerful states of the world. A 
hundred years later, though much diminished, it was still 
strong. ISTo longer ago than the time of our Revolution it 
yet numbered twelve million people. Since then it has 
ceased to be a nation. There is a Polish people, but there 
is no citizen of Poland. Every Pole, whether at home or 
abroad is in a sense an exile. Campbell said, "Freedom 
shrieked when Kosciusko fell,^' but whatever we may think 
of Kosciusko and a few genuine patriots, their cause was 
doomed from the start. It deserved no better fate. The 
freedom for which too many Poles fought was simply lib- 
erty to make war against one another, to plunder one an- 
other. It was not patriotism, but selfishness. Alison, the 
historian, after quoting the line of Campbell continues, 
"But the truth of history must dispel the illusion and un- 
fold in the fall of Poland the natural consequences of its 
national delinquencies. The eldest born of the European 
family was the first to perish because she had thwarted all 
the ends of the social union ; because she united the turbu- 
lence of democratic to the exclusion of aristocratic socie- 
ties; because she had the vacillation of a republic with- 
out its energy, and the oppression of a monarchy without 
its stability. Such a system neither could nor ought to 
be maintained.'' 

How different is the history of Switzerland in spite 
of many dark pages! 

Even if the individual be nothing more than a link in 
the chain of human endeavor his efforts will not be in vain, 
if intelligently directed. We need not ask ourselves 
whether we are heirs to a personal immortality. A clear 
grasp of this doctrine answers the question for every man 



PATRIOTISM AND PARTISAN SHIP. 147 

who desires to deserve well of his country or of the race. 
It is not the immortality of the mere time-server who is 
content with the maxim "Let us eat and drink, for to- 
morrow we die." "The chief impulses of progressive na- 
tions are abstract ideas and ideals, unreal and unrealizable., 
and it is in the piirsuit of these that the great as well 
as the small movements on the arena of national life and 
on the stage of history have taken place." 

Let us take an example of a purely material kind. If a 
man sets out to accumulate a fortune of a million dollars, 
does all that he gains count for nothing until he has 
reached the goal ? One dollar is already something toward 
the end he has in view ; ten thousand dollars are something 
more, a hundred thousand a great deal more. But if he 
saves nothing or gets into debt he is going in the wrong 
direction, just as that man in the community is who not 
onl}'' contributes nothing to the welfare of the community, 
but who subtracts something from it, who is a hindrance to 
its progress. Ideas are living forces that persistently strive 
toward realization in fact. Where such ideas do not exist., 
or where they are not intelligently directed society is at a 
standstill. All that has been done and thought in the 
world from the earliest times that has benefited the race 
has had regard more to the future than the present. The 
propagators of immortal ideas have so to speak held to the 
past with one hand, and while their eyes were on the pres- 
ent they reached out to the future with the other. Greek 
thought is a living entity though Greece has long since 
passed away. The experience the Romans embodied in 
their legal system still permeates those of the civilized 
world. The Christian Church, or at least the spirit of 
Christianity, is more vigorous now than ever. And while 
it has never been a political organization, it has never 



148 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

ceased to influence legislation. The purposes of its lead- 
ers have, it is true, often been baneful, but the rank and 
file, both of its clergy and laity, have for the most part 
been faen and women of honest purposes who sought their 
reward only or chiefly in the consciousness of having 
striven to make the world better. With the conquests of 
Greece and Eome and Christianity compare those of Gen- 
ghis Khan and Tamerlane and Mohammedism, and mark 
the contrast. What is there left of the former but a bloody 
specter, and what is the latter doing to elevate its votaries ? 
The answer can only be a short and emphatic one — nothing. 
It has no ideal, no sentiment, only a bleak and disgusting 
and shortsighted materialistic sensualism. 

If there is one lesson that history teaches more emphatic- 
ally than any other it is that true patriotism is idealistic. 
It is not contented with the present; it seeks something 
better. It is eminently long-sighted. It neither asks nor 
answers the miserable interrogatory, "What is all this 
worth to me,^' where there is a question of what policy is 
the wisest. If it is dissatisfied with present conditions it 
is with the hope and belief that they can be made better. 
And let us not be misled by the cry, The party wants this 
or wants that. Parties do not and can not make princi- 
ples; principles are eternal. Parties can not make men; 
it is men that make parties. A policy that is based on 
mere expediency, that is, a mere servant of the passing oc- 
casion, is doomed to perish. If men allow themselves to 
be misled by the shibboleth of parties, if they cling to a 
name after the substance has departed and do not take heed 
whither they are going, they are sure to be led to destruc- 
tion. If the progress of intelligence means any good to 
the world it must enable men to think for themselves, to act 
for themselves and make them refuse to be led anyv^here 



PATRIOTISM AND PARTISANSHIP, 14^ 

against their better judgment. The world has far less 
need of a few great men than of many genuinely patriotic 
citizens. Patriotism means statesmanship, rather than 
mere statecraft. If it elects war, it is only as an un- 
avoidable necessity and because it will secure a more dur- 
able peace. It directs the policy of William of Orange, of 
Stein, of Washington and Lincoln, rather than that of 
Louis XIV, of Metternich, of Talleyrand, of Napoleon, of 
Calhoun and Davis. It is less concerned about immediate 
effects than lasting results. 

But I have been advocating the cause of the sentimental 
as against the practical statesman and now that I am ap- 
proaching the end of my discourse, I find that I have been 
advocating the cause of reason against sentiment, or, at 
least, against passion, against impulse ; it is an appeal from 
Philip drunk to Philip sober. I have made a plea for a 
practical, for a reasonable policy, if not against a system of 
politics as yet practicable. I am sure if such a system is 
as yet beyond our reach it represents the goal towards 
which statesmanship has been tending, slowly, it may be, 
but tending nevertheless. Surely as men grow wiser they 
grow more humane, more capable of self-control, more will- 
ing to live and to let live. If they talk less about the rights 
of men they are not therefore less willing to recognize and 
accord these rights. It is true, much thought, much en- 
ergy, much time and much money are still expended on the 
art of destruction, but I believe still more are expended 
on the arts of peace, on the arts that increase the happi- 
ness of mankind. Sad to say, this is not the case in all 
countries, but it is so in some, probably in many. Even 
what is ostensibly intended for war may ultimately pro- 
mote peace, for no nation lives wholly or even chiefly by 
war. There are no longer perpetual national feuds, as 



150 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

there have been and still are perpetual tribal feuds. Some 
of the great powers may still be ready to fly at each others' 
throats, but they deliberate more carefully before making 
the fatal plunge. 

It is a noteworthy fact that with the growth of nationali- 
ties wars have decreased in frequency. Until compara- 
tively recent times the different portions of Great Britain 
and Ireland were engaged in almost continual conflict. 
What is now France was much in the same case. Some of 
the Italian States were almost continually at loggerheads 
with others. In nearly all the wars in which Germany 
has been engaged some of the States were on one side and 
some on the other. It does not seem easy to say anything 
bad that is an exaggeration about the government of Eus- 
sia, yet it can not be denied that the growth of the empire 
has been conducive to internal peace. We may think of 
the motive as we please, it can at least not be said that the 
idea that has for two hundred years inspired the govern- 
ment of this great empire of the north has thus far and on 
the whole produced a retrograde movement in the cause of 
civilization. 

But, finally, let us not deceive ourselves as to the facts 
and to the duty of present and future generations. The 
world will only go forward so long as men will to advance. 
It is easy to stop or to fall behind ; it is not easy to go on. 
In the world of volition we are not dealing with physical 
forces that can neither be increased nor diminished.; 
United effort toward a common end, toward a common 
goal that all progressive nations perceive more or less 
clearly will greatly accelerate the common weal. We must 
not strive to make ourselves as contented as we can amid 
conditions as we find them, but rather endeavor to bring 
them a little nearer conditions such as every normally con- 
stituted man would like to have them. 



SPIRITUAL VERITIES. 

It is not safe to assume that we know much about what 
is passing in other people's minds ; but to judge from what 
we see going on around us it may well be doubted whether 
any considerable portion of our fellow-mortals give the 
question of how to make the most of life any serious 
thought. Years before they reach the age of maturity 
the large majority have lapsed into the ruts of the hum- 
drum existence led by those about them, and it is almost 
a miracle if by some fortunate chance are lifted out 
of it. The merchant in his buying and selling, the artisan 
at his trade, the professional man in the pursuit of his 
daily vocation, are chiefly concerned about making the 
largest pecuniary gains out of the particular transaction 
in hand, and about little else. It is true that now and then 
we find parents who are intelligently solicitous for the 
welfare of their own children and that of the rising genera- 
tion as a whole and who are willing to make almost any 
sacrifices for the attainment of so noble an object ; but with 
the large majority the wish is a mere sentiment that does 
not find expression in a consistent line of conduct. 

We Americans take a great deal of credit to ourselves 
because we are not idealists and sentimentalists, but prac- 
tical men and women who have our gaze steadily directed 

(151) 



152 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

toward tangible objects. In politics as in business every 
man has an eye chiefly to his personal advancement, and 
he who should desire a public office chiefly for the oppor- 
tunities it would give him for benefiting the public at 
large would be regarded as a very peculiar sort of a man, if 
nothing else. A few men can be found who openly advo- 
cate the doctrine that in our elective offices the first qualifi- 
cation of the nominee should be character and ability, 
though many are willing to assign to these the second place, 
while reserving the first to party fealty and the power to 
win votes. Yet it sometimes dawns upon us, if only for 
a moment, that there is such a thing as being too practical ; 
at least we are willing to admit that the other fellows are 
so. Rich men are coming more and more to fill our im- 
portant offices because of their practical methods in the 
canvas. They have a way of carrying elections and of 
getting places for themselves and friends that is out of 
reach of him who relies on character alone. And those 
who elevate them to office are practical men; why should 
they exert themselves for an abstraction, an ideal, when it 
is possible to get ready cash, or its equivalent ? 

"You take my life 
When you do take the means whereby I live," 

says Shjdock, most truly, if life consists chiefly or wholly 
in the abundance of the things that a man hath. On the 
same principle a man will work for those who promise to 
afford him the means of putting money in his purse, with- 
out a very careful scrutiny of the merits of the question in- 
volved. The issue is simply between the individual and the 
whole community. I suppose that the man who accepts 
what the law calls a bribe justifies himself by the same 



SPIRITUAL VERITIES, 153:. 

reasoning that the man uses who works for the candidate 
that commands the most influence. Of two equally com- 
petent candidates why should I not support that one who is 
able and willing to give me something of practical value, 
whether it be dollars or something else? I am persuaded 
that a good deal of the indignation that now and then 
breaks out against successful candidates arises from a state 
of mind like that of the little girl who said, "Mamma, see 
what a pig my sister is ; she took the largest orange in the 
dish, and I wanted it." It is not so much indignation at 
the disguised bribery, per se, as vexation at the condition 
of things which made it possible for the other side to 
bribe heavier than ours. The great misfortune of this 
condition of things is that it keeps most of the real states- 
men, the men who are able and willing to legislate for 
the general good rather than local interests, out of our 
legislative halls, and puts in their places men of narrow 
views and limited information. One does not need to be 
very widely read to see that much of our bad or imprac- 
ticable legislation is simply a repetition of the same or 
similar legislation in other states. If we are not willing 
to profit by the experience of Europe we ought to be willing 
at least to profit by that of our sister states, and be only too 
glad to use their dear-bought experience when it can be 
had for almost nothing, in preference to buying it over 
again. And when questions of world-wide interest are ta 
be legislated upon, such as those which concern the cur- 
rency and international commerce, it is the most short- 
sighted folly to ignore the experience of the foremost Euro- 
pean countries. A man or a nation that undertakes to 
contravene the laws of nature inevitably does so to his 
ovm detriment. The time has passed when any civilized- 
nation can get along without the rest. 



154 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION, 

To me it is ver}^ clear, as it must be to every careful 
reader of history, that in politics the winning principle is 
idealistic ; it is what the careful interpreter of the past sees 
and what the mere time-server does not see. It is the pur- 
suit of ideal aims that distinguishes the mere politician 
from the statesman. The one seeks his country's good in 
the largest and fullest sense, though it may -sometimes be at 
the expense of his present popularity and personal interest. 
The other puts self and section first. 

In England the years that preceded the American Revo- 
lution showed clearly the party of ideals in contrast to 
those who were interested only in their present welfare 
and personal interests. When King George proposed to 
Grenville the alternative of taxing the colonies or resigning 
his office, he chose the former, though clearly convinced of 
its inexpediency — -let us at least give him credit for this 
much. Looking at the record of English legislation dur- 
ing this period it is plainly evident that the party of ideals, 
of principles, the impracticables, though for a time com- 
pletely defeated were in the end victorious. The English 
people had to pay for the follies of their rulers. It was 
not the "king's friends," but his opponents, his enemies, 
as they would doubtless be often designated, Pitt and 
Burke, and those who stood with them, those who had the 
courage to defend an unpopular course, for the reason 
that it was founded on right, who are now, ranked among 
her leading statesmen. It was these English defenders of 
a "lost cause," though lost only for a time, that posterity 
no less at home than abroad, now delights to honor, not so 
much for what they accomplished in their day, as for main- 
taining views which time proved to be just and true and 
expedient. It was the cause of humanity, the cause which 
the progress of events shows is always and everywhere des- 



SPIRITUAL VERITIES. 155 

tined to win. How different the fate of these men from 
that which is overtaking the defenders of another "lost 
cause/' in our own day. However much we may respect 
the personal qualities of some of those who were led into 
it we can not shut our eyes to the fact that they fought for 
a sectional issue, for a principle that the world had out- 
grown and that they undertook to do that which has never 
been done, put back the hands on the dial-plate of time. 
The world at large is taking less interest in their names 
and their fate and historians will ere long use these only as 
they do that of the Napoleons, 

"To point a moral or adorn a tale." 

For centuries the German people had suffered inconceiv- 
able miseries from the all-powerful spirit of particularism 
that dominated its rulers. Concerned only for that which 
would prolong their lease of power or conduce to personal 
aggrandizement her petty princes took little account of the 
needs of their subjects and of the whole country. The 
dream of German unity lived only in the books of histori- 
ans and philosophers, or was whispered from lips to lips 
in the little coteries of idealists that existed here and there. 
Yet that which was for centuries but an idea, an aspiration 
and a hope, is to-day a reality, because there were some who. 
never despaired even in the darkest hour, because they in- 
terpreted more correctly than the practical politicians the 
signs of the times and the tendency of events. 

The recent history of Italy closely resembles that of 
Germany; with this difference that her outlook for unity 
was even more hopeless. For the century preceding her 
unification Germany had maintained a vigorous intellec- 
tual life, while Italy had sunk into a condition of mental 
torpor. Yet Cavour and those who shared his views and 
sympathized with his aims did not despair and only ceased 



156 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

from their labors when they had been brought to a suc- 
cessful issue. I do not, of course, maintain that all senti- 
mental politics is destined in the end to practical realiza- 
tion. No doubt ends are often proposed by thinking men 
that are not only visionary, but which are destined to re- 
main forever only a dream. My contention is that every 
project deserves to be judged, not by its prospect of imme- 
diate realization and its evident practical utility, but by 
its intrinsic worth; for if history can be said to demon- 
strate anything it is that 

"Nature, in her productions slow, aspires 
By just degrees, to reach perfection's height/' 

But it is not the aimless material forces that aspire to 
perfection's height. It is those unchangeable moral forces 
which must be translated into action by the wisely regu- 
lated will of man. "A prince is nothing in the presence of 
a principle." Things are not what they seem to the 
merely superficial observer. It is only the solitary stu- 
dent, the true philosopher, the deep thinker who can dis- 
cern the force and bearing of ideas. There are some an- 
cient writers whose worlvs the world does not grow weary of 
conning, because the thoughts are always modern. Judged 
by this standard that coryphaeus of idealistic philosophers, 
Plato, is better appreciated to-day than he was in his life- 
time. And there were others like him though not his 
equals. They clearly discerned the goal toward which in- 
stitutional life must strive if man is to realize to the full 
the life of which he is capable, though they were sometimes 
mistaken as to the best methods of attaining it. The time 
for such men as Plato in an active sphere had not yet 
come ; so the moral atmosphere in which he lived was thor- 



SPIRITUAL VERITIES. 157 

oughly uncongenial. Not least did he show his wisdom 
in this that he spent his days in putting on record the 
truths which few of his countrjanen had the prescience to 
comprehend, as a testimony to the world how different its 
fate would have been had they heeded but a small portion 
of his suggestions. Whenever a people has sought purely 
practical aims by the sacrifice of justice and righteousness 
somebody has had to pay the penalty. Eegarded from the 
purely practical point of view no course had ever so little 
prospect of success as Christianity. A little company of 
converts to a new religion, in an unimportant city of an 
obscure province of the Eoman Empire, calmly planning the 
conquest of the world with spiritual weapons alone. Sub- 
lime was the spectacle, immeasurable the faith in the hearts 
of these zealots ! But time has justified their hopes and set 
the seal of approval on their vast undertaking. Wliat did 
it signify that they would be bitterly opposed by both those 
who held to the religion which they had given up and by 
those who cared nothing for any religion ! Wliat matter that 
they would come into conflict with paganism in its various 
local cults and with the whole power of the Roman Em- 
pire ! The things that were not seen proved mightier than 
those that were visible and tangible. In a few centuries it 
was the victor and in a condition to dictate terms to the 
powers that but recently had despised and hated and 
striven mightily at times to eradicate it. The same sub- 
lime faith and undaunted courage still animates the 
church. The spiritual regeneration of Asia, with her 
teeming millions, looks like an idle dream. But it is not 
any more impossible of realization than the conquest of 
Europe was eighteen centuries ago. 

What is the literature worth that looks only to immediate 
profits? Things are changing somewhat in this regard, 



158 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

yet even now they who write what will yield the largest 
and swiftest returns are producing only for to-day. To- 
morrow no one will care for it. It is the pursuit of the 
ideal, the effort to realize so far as may be the subjective 
conception of what is loftiest and best that gives to the 
work of the artist in every department that which is of 
permanent value. If I read history aright the world owes 
about all that is valuable in it to dreamers and idealists;, 
to men who live in the future rather than in the present. 
"Human progress depends upon the dreams of enthusiasts. 
The inventor, the discoverer, the reformer are dreamers 
who, prophet-like, see in their imagination things th^t 
other mortals know not of.^' Many dreams have become 
realities and are common-place facts to us now. It is 
hardly too much to say that civilization consists of realized 
dreams. We call dreams which are not all dreams, ideals, 
and the only reason why all dreams are not useful as ideals 
is because the stuff of which the ideal is made does not 
conform to the actual state of things and is not handled 
according to the laws of nature. We must admit that in 
the domain of physical science the dreamer may often ex- 
pend toil and anxious thought in that which is destined to 
remain forever unrealized. We may labor to turn a baser 
metal into gold and fail, or to construct a flying-machine 
that will never fly, but it is not so in the domain of the ar- 
tistic and the ethical. Here no honest labor is ever thrown 
away. Think of personal immortality as we may, death 
is no finality and we must not form our rules of conduct to 
accord with the idea that the exit of our individual life is 
the end of all. People who have no interests, no care or 
ideals that reach beyond the grave, may enjoy themselves 
better than others who live their lives with a constant pros- 
pect of immortality ; yet in the long run of many genera- 



SPIRITUAL VERITIES. 159, 

tions they will go to the wall. Xature does not preserve 
the individual that cares for itself alone. But nature pre- 
serves those individual features of great men v/ho conquer 
egotism, and lead moral lives of self-discipline and ideal 
aspirations. The moral teachers of mankind found it nec- 
essary to build their ethics upon the immortality of the 
soul ; and it is not at all to be wondered at that the funda- 
mental doctrine of the church survived in the struggle for 
existence against those people who looked upon death as an 
absolute finality. 

Happiness is an important component of life, but it is 
not the most important; it is not the end and purpose of 
life. "Let us not look for ease in this world unless it 
be on the eve of a life that has been full of aspiration and 
labor. There is no ease for those who wish to progress. 
And let us find satisfaction, not in the pleasures of life — 
usually so-called, — but in the noble struggle for advance- 
ment and amelioration.'^ 

In the summer of '83 I spent some hours wandering 
about in what is perhaps the most famous of all cemeteries^ 
Pere la Chaise, in Paris. Among other things my atten- 
tion was attracted by a monument that seemed to be one 
huge mass of wreaths and flowers. On closer inspection I 
found it to be that of the historian and statesman Michelet, 
and the question naturally rose in my mind, Why were his 
remains thus conspicuously honored above all the thou- 
sands and tens of thousands that reposed in the bosom of 
the earth about me? His monument is by no means the 
finest there and no noble blood, as men are wont to reckon 
nobility, flowed in his veins. Though dead nearly half 
a score of years his friends had not forgotten him and 
according to the beautiful custom of the French people 
were continually bringing fresh flowers to his tomb in 



160 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

grateful remembrance of his services to his country. These 
profuse floral tributes may have been in part the expression 
of private friendship and esteem, but that which endeared 
him to a wider circle was his indefatigable and disinter- 
ested zeal in behalf of the rights of the people, in behalf of 
democracy and against ecclesiasticism. It is probable that 
he accomplished little that directly benefited his country, 
but he did much indirectly in the way of stimulating 
thought and in pointing out to his fellow-citizens in what 
directions national greatness and prosperity lay. Poster- 
ity delights to honor him not so much because he achieved 
great things, as because he disinterestedly devoted a long 
life and great abilities, not to the accomplishment of pri- 
vate objects, but to labors for the public good. 

It is well to remember that not every life which seems 
to be a failure is really so, and that not every enterprise 
which proves abortive, has been undertaken wholly in vain. 
The list of names of men and women whose earthly careers 
were a failure, judged only by the common standard of their 
own day, is a long one; yet as we look back upon their 
record viewing it in the light of subsequent events few of 
us would hesitate to take their places rather than that of 
an equal number who won transient renown and a large 
inheritance of perishable possessions. 

In that most remarkable poem of the nineteenth century, 
a production into which the author has wrought the sub- 
jective experience of a life extending over more than three- 
quarters of a century, we have finely contrasted, at least 
by implication, the diverging results of a life spent for self- 
ish and practical ends with the same life devoted to the 
good of others. In the First Part of Faust the hero is 
placed before us as a man endowed with the highest intel- 
lectual gifts and enjoying the respect of his fellow-men be- 



SPIRITUAL VERITIES. 161 

cause of his learning and talents. But his life had been 
spent solely for self and in pursuit of selfish ends. The 
time comes when he realizes to its full extent how unsatis- 
factory such an existence is and he seriously contemplates 
putting an end to it with a poisonous draught. An ervil 
spirit suggests to him that there is still one thing untried 
and advises him to seek enjoyment in sensuality, advises 
him not only to renounce a mode of life that was at least 
harmless, but to enter upon a course that will stop at noth- 
ing, not even the sacrifice of the happiness of his fellow-be- 
ings, provided it will contribute to his own gratification. It 
need hardly be said that to one so gifted, to one who appre- 
hends so clearly the constitution of things, such a course 
must prove even less satisfactory than the former. 

Made a wiser but a sadder man by the bitter experiences 
of more than half a lifetime of misdirected effort, he is 
led to take a wider and juster view of his relation to so- 
ciety and the world of which he forms a part. He thence- 
forth directs his attention to an altruistic object and re- 
solves to devote the remaining years of his life to that 
which aims at the good of others rather than himself. Here 
almost to his surprise he finds satisfaction and the inter- 
nal peace which he had so long sought in vain. We believe 
the experience of Faust is the experience of every one who 
is not intrinsically and totally depraved. Fortunately for 
the world the number of these is small ; but unfortunately 
they are too few who, endowed with talents and learning, 
never give up the problem of life until they have solved it, 
and found the solution in the salvation which the hero of 
Goethe's poem worked out with such determined earnest- 
ness of purpose. 

German literature furnishes us with another instructive 
contrast in the person of the two men who by universal 

11 



162 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

consent stand at its head. Goethe's intellect is confessedly 
of the very highest order. But two or three other names 
have by the verdict of scholars, been written so high on 
the pinnacle of fame. And he was fortunate as the world 
estimates fortune. Eiches were his by inheritance, hon- 
ors came to him by desert, power and authority were en- 
trusted to his hands, while good health and long life placed 
the crown upon the mercies which God had so lavishly be- 
stowed upon him. But his moral nature was weak; he 
was willing to court power for the gifts it was able to be- 
stow, he was more concerned with the study of man as he 
is than with the efforts to make him as he should be. For 
the sorrows of an unhappy country he bad few words of 
sympathy, and distressed humanity found in him but a 
lukewarm friend. People in whom the intellectual pre- 
dominates over the moral love to study him much as they 
would study a remarkable organic growth, but his career 
furnishes no noble example and his memory no beacon light 
to which future generations may look for guidance and 
inspiration. In striking contrast is the life of his younger 
contemporary, Schiller, the favorite of the whole German 
people. Less richly endowed by nature, he put his tal- 
ents to nobler uses. The child of poverty, destined to 
struggle through the whale of his brief life with adverse 
circumstances, he steadfastly refused to bow to power or 
to speak a word unworthy of an honest and upright man. 
He was less concerned with depicting man as he is than in 
pointing out to him what he might be f^nd ought to be. 
Moral purity characterized his life and political liberty is 
the key note of his teachings. Which of these two careers 
is the most worthy of imitation and in which was the 
largest promise and potency of future good? 



SPIRITUAL VERITIES. . 163 

During the former part of the last century a music 
teacher connected with one of the gymnasia of the city of 
Leipzig was diligently and unostentatiously pursuing his 
chosen vocation. He was known as a performer on the 
organ, of more than ordinary merit, but he cared little for 
notoriety and his reputation hardly spread beyond the circle 
of his personal acquaintances. Yet he was a diligent com- 
poser for every musical instrument then known and seem& 
to have been satisfied v/hen his thoughts had been com- 
mitted to paper or at most executed by such inadequate 
help as could be found among his pupils. Scantily ap- 
preciated during his life, doubtless owing to his modesty 
and indifference to public applause, he was soon almost for- 
gotten after his death except by a few admirers, and his 
musical compositions neglected and scattered. Two gen- 
erations later Mendelssohn began to direct the attention 
of his fellow-musicians to the inexhaustible wealth of har- 
mony treasured up in the works of John Sebastian Bach, 
and it was soon acknowledged by competent judges that 
this almost forgotten composer was a genius of the highest 
order. His organ compositions are now admitted to be 
not only "unsurpassed but unsurpassable,'^ and in the lan- 
guage of Schumann "music owes to him almost as great 
a debt as religion owes to its founder." Posterity became 
possessed with the desire to make some amends for the neg- 
lect of contemporaries, by erecting over the grave of this 
wonderful master of harmony, some token of its apprecia- 
tion. But lo ! the last resting place of the man who was 
worthy to sit as the peer of Handel and Beethoven could 
not be found; and to this day his dust reposes in an un- 
known and unmarked grave. Yet this poor musician who 
during life earned little beyond his daily bread and who 
after death had no one to place even a tablet to his memory. 



164 WI8D0M AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

had erected for himself a monument "more enduring than 
brass, and loftier than the pyramids' royal structure ; which 
not the wasting shower, not the raving northwind can 
have power to overthrovf, or the countless succession of 
years, and the ages' flight." He had steadily pursued the 
highest ideal of excellence that he could conceive and had 
never stopped to see whether his efforts were appreciated. 
All the millionaires on the earth could not purchase an im- 
mortality like his. They might erect costly monuments 
and gorgeous tombs, but the world would remember that 
they were nobodies and care nothing for them except per- 
haps to gratify an idle curiosity, unless there was something 
more than wealth to entitle them to remembrance. 

Here, then, was another life that was a failure, according 
to the ordinary scale of measurement, but it was a brilliant 
success when measured by that loftier standard which has 
regard rather to things as they are than as they seem to 
be. It is, of course, easy to argue, as men often do, when 
the matter of aims in life is under discussion, that the ex- 
ample of men of extraordinary talents is worth nothing to 
him who has all he can do to make a living. But what is 
the mission of great men if it is not to ?erve as examples 
to the rest ? The world is not made up of great men, but 
of ordinary ones. Every man may and ought to work for 
some ideal; it need not be a high one, and yet be of great 
advantage to himself and to others. The man whose aim 
is to make a better shoe than anybody else in his town de- 
serves commendation for that. The man whose ideal is the 
perfect citizen will serve as a useful example to many. 
It is not always the man who occupies the most conspicuous 
position who is the greatest benefactor to the community. 
The social structure may be compared to a building of 
stone in which each separate piece has its place and its 



SPIRITUAL VERITIES. 165 

office. The key-stone over an arch or the block over a 
window or a door may be more essential to the solidity of 
the structure than some of the smaller fragments ; and yet 
not a piece that has once been assigned to its place can 
be taken away without marring the beauty and symmetry 
of the building. Nor can it be said that what is used to 
form the top of the wall is any more important than the 
bottom, even though some of the latter be quite out of 
sight. We may say here in the words of Scripture, "If they 
were all one member, where were the body ? But now there 
are many members, yet one body. And the eye can not 
say to the hand, I have no need of thee ; nor again, the head, 
to the feet, I have no need of thee; nay, much more those 
members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are 
necessary; and whether one member suffer, all members 
suffer with it ; or one member be honored, all members re- 
joice with it." Or again, "ye also as living stones are 
built up a spiritual house." Viewed from a purely theo- 
retical standpoint it seems easy to inspire the world with 
higher aims in life. It is only necessary for each individ- 
ual to put a better spirit into one person and that is him- 
self, or if that is making too large a demand, we will ex- 
pect nothing of one-half the members of society, by their 
own efforts and expect the other half to raise one person 
besides himself to higher grounds. Or, again, let parents 
devote themselves solely and singly to the good of their 
children, and with the next generation the millenium 
would be ushered in. The orphan alone would be left for 
some one to take care of, and it would be easy for the child- 
less to take upon themselves that charge. But alas ! 
what is theoretically so easy is practically impossible; too 
many care nothing for themselves and equally little for 
others. You all know the story of the man who bequeathed 



166 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

to his sons a vineyard in which he said a treasure lay bur- 
ied. As he did not tell them in what part, they were com- 
pelled to dig it all over, and to their surprise the treasure 
proved to be the enriched soil of the vineyard. I am per- 
suaded that the desire to acquire a competence or even 
riches may be perfectly legitimate, but it ought not to ab- 
sorb any man's entire attention. He should not forget, 
no matter how humble his station, that his fellow-men, and 
especially his children, if he has any, have a claim upon 
him which he can not ignore. The young man who in- 
herited an ideal treasure found a real one while searching 
for it ; so the man who strives to lay up a competence may 
not succeed in that, but there is no reason why he should 
not be a better man because of his object in life. 

Ruskin has some Judicious remarks on the ideal aims 
that may inspire a man even in the humblest pursuits. 
The first thing a man has to do is to find out what he is 
fit for. "People usually reason in some such fashion as 
this: 'I don't seem quite fit for a head-manager in the 

firm of & Co., therefore, in all probability, I am 

fit to be Chancellor of the Exchequer.' Whereas, they 
ought rather to reason thus: 'I don't seem quite fit to 

be head-manager in the firm of & Co., but I dare 

say I might do something in a small green grocery busi- 
ness; I used to be a good judge of pease;' that is to say, 
always trying lower instead of trying higher until they 
find bottom ; on a wall set in the ground, a man may build 
up by degrees, safely instead of disturbing every one in 
the neighborhood by perpetual catastrophies.'' He goes 
on then to show how many parents are in a constant state 
of feverish anxiety about the future station in life of their 
children, as if this were anything, and adds, "There is no 
real desire for the safety, the discipline, or the moral good 



SPIRITUAL VERITIES. 167 

of the children, only a panic horror of the inexpressibly 
pitiable calamity of their living a ledge or two lower on the 
molehill of the world — a calamity to be averted at any 
cost whatever, of struggle, anxiety and shortening of life 
itself. I do not believe that any greatex good could be 
achieved for the country, than the change of public feeling 
on this head, which might be brought about by a few 
benevolent men, undeniably in the class of ^gentlemen,' 
who would, on principle, enter into some of our commonest 
trades, and make them honorable ; showing that it was pos- 
sible for a man to retain his dignity, and remain, in the 
best sense a gentleman, though part of his time was every 
day occupied in manual labor, or even in serving customers 
over a counter. I do not in the least see why courtesy, and 
gravity, and sympathy with the feelings of others, and cour- 
age, and truth, and piety, and what else goes to make up 
a gentleman's character, should not be found behind a 
counter as well as elsewhere, if they were demanded, or 
even hoped for, there." These remarks though used of En- 
glish life, may with a slight modification be applied to 
ourselves. But I shall not speak here of the dignity of 
labor; we hear a great deal about that and believe very 
little of it. But I do insist on the dignity of life; upon 
the supreme importance of striving for the attainment of 
some worthy object, and of so living that each to-morrow 
may find us farther than to-day in all the elements of true 
manhood and womanhood. 

But it is not those who are chiefly engaged in labors 
of a more or less mecl-inical sort to whom society has a 
right to look for ideal aims in life. It is the cultured, the 
intelligent, the educated who should take the lead. And 
what is knowledge worth to the individual and to society 
if it does not lift men above the narrow mercantile spirit 



168 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

of the age. The illiterate and uncultured man may well 
say, especially if his motives are pure and his life upright, 
"I do not see that my intelligent neighbor is one whit more 
self-sacrificing or less grasping or less eager for dollars 
and cents than I am." He is right when he holds that 
knowledge alone will not save men. It is not enough to 
know what ails a patient, it is equally important that one 
should know how to cure him and be willing to make the 
sacrifices necessary to his restoration. Yet intelligent men 
are the saviors of the world. Turkey has not advanced in 
half a dozen centuries, because she has no scholars, no citi- 
zens with ideal aims either in art or science or morals. 
With the Turk the only question is how to get through the 
day. Spain is very much in the same case; for the few 
to whom life means more than merely to eat and drink and 
sleep have little influence on the unregenerate masses, so 
largely in the majority. 

I beg you to consider whether it is not the pursuit of 
ideals; and moral preaching that has brought the world to 
where it is. And if you find it so, will you not put heart and 
head and hand to this glorious work ? Take this stand from 
principle and pursue your object unremittingly through 
life. There is hardly a man living who would not like to 
have the credit of being honest and generous and benevo- 
lent, but selfishness hinders so many noble impulses from 
blossoming into action. Men resort to hypocrisy to gain 
credit for deeds which they have not the moral earnestness 
to perform. How much better it is to strive for real ex- 
cellence than for the mere credit of it ; for a reality than a 
sham. I do not know whether the inhabitants of the spirit 
world take any interest in what is going on in our mundane 
life; but it seems to m.e that if it is possible for disembod- 
ied souls to look upon this struggle between what is good 



SPIRITUAL VERITIES. 169' 

and what is evil, between what is high and what is low, 
between what is ideal and what is selfish, and the thought 
were forced upon them : In all this I took no part and had 
no interest; I never contributed a dollar nor an hour's la- 
bor to sustain the good against the evil, but allowed my in- 
significant self to fill the entire horizon of my mental vis- 
ion, that would be torment enough. 

I know that it is not easy to be true to the ideal of our 
youth, through a career of disappointment, such as every 
life is to a greater or less degree. I have no doubt that 
every successful m.an in an ethical cause has often had oc- 
casion to say with the Psalmist, "My feet had well nigh 
slipped, when I beheld the prosperity of the wicked." But 
for the very reason that so many lead aimless lives the ob- 
ligation is the more binding on the few who have a deeper 
insight. He that would be greatest among you shall be 
your servant. 

"Not many lives, but only one have we — 

Frail, fleeting man! 
How sacred that one life should be — 

That narrow span! 
Day after day filled up with blessed toil. 
Hour after hour still bringing in new spoil.'^ 

But while we have but one life to live, that is not the end 
of us even in this world, unless we will have it so. 

"So to live that when the sun 

Of our existence sinks in night. 
Memorials sweet of mercies done 

May shrine our names in memory's light. 
And the blest seeds we scatter'd bloom 
A hundred-fold in days to come." 



170 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

This is not a mere fancy sketch — it is something that is 
within the reach of even the humblest, but it requires a 
fixed and earnest purpose. 

I can not more fitly conclude the lesson of the present 
hour than with some words Carlyle uses in closing his life 
of John Sterling. Would that the same could be used 
of us all ! 

"In Sterling's writings and actions, were they capable of 
being well read, we consider that there is for all true hearts 
especially for young and noble seekers, and strivers toward 
what is highest, a mirror in which some shadow of them- 
selves and of their immeasureably complex arena will prof- 
itably present itself. Here also is one encompassed and 
struggling even as they now are. This man had said to 
himself, not in mere catechism-words, but with all his in- 
stincts, and the question thrilled in every nerve of him, 
and pulsed in every drop of blood : What is the chief end 
of man? Behold I too would live and work as beseems a 
denizen of this Universe — a child of the Highest God. By 
what means is a noble life still possible to me, ye Heavens, 
and thou Earth, oh how?" This is the question which 
every honest. God-fearing man asks himself every day, and 
even oftener. But the sum and substance is contained in 
the words : "Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things 
are honorable, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever 
things are lovely, whatsover things are of good report; if 
there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these 
thing's.'' 



SELF-EENUNCIATION. 

N"ot very many years ago a learned and clever Scotchman 
wrote a book to prove that "civilization is nothing more 
than the complicated outcome of a war waged with nature 
by man in society to prevent her from putting into execu- 
tion in his case the law of natural selection.* All men 
everywhere, from states very low to states very high in 
civilization are banded together, weakly or powerfully, to 
light this fight, and the measure of success which attends 
the struggle of each band or association so engaged is the 
measure of success it has attained/^ 

It does not concern us to examine here whether this cor- 
rectly states a law of nature; but that it embodies a large 
measure of truth no one will dispute, and it may be safely 
accepted as a good working hypothesis. For who that has 
read history can deny that there have always been at work in 
the world two antagonistic forces; one tending to disinte- 
grate society, the other to keep it together and improve it ? 
As one force or the other had the upper hand society ad- 
vanced and improved or retrograded and decayed. Just as in 
every living body dissolution begins the moment the vital 



*The Past in the Present: What Is Civilization? By Arthur 
Mitchell. 

(171) 



172 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

forces cease to be active in building np its tissues ; so in the 
social organism, when the natural forces which exist in 
man as an individual overpower the spiritual forces de- 
veloped and strengthened by the attrition of man against 
man in society, progress is stopped and disintegration be- 
gins. 

Self-denial or self-sacrifice is a convenient term to desig- 
nate the law of progress, selfishness the principle that coun- 
teracts it. The terms can be reversed and the statement 
will be equally true. Let us look at their applicability in 
the explanation of a few historical eras of first rate im- 
portance. The fundamental principle of the ancient Greek 
states, notably Athens and Lacedaemon, was the obligation 
of the individual to consult the interests of the common- 
wealth rather than his own. It was each one's duty to 
sacrifice all that he had upon the altar of his country. As 
long as their citizens recognized and acted under this feel- 
ing their political power was greater than any force that 
could be brought against them. But though the East 
could not evercome them in battle it was able by the assidu- 
ous nurture of selfishness to undermine their civic virtue 
so that in time they fell an easy prey to those who were 
eager for their destruction. The citizen preferred ease 
and personal gratification to liberty maintained by per- 
sonal sacrifices. With the decay of civic virtue, literature 
sank lower and lower until it was no longer worthy of the 
name. The spirit that once made the Athenian proud of 
his nationalit)^, of the beauty of his native city, of the 
splendor of her festivals, the genius of her artists, the glorjr 
of her choric exhibitions, that made him boast of the re- 
nown of her achievements in everything that was noble, no 
longer animated him, and the self-seeking Greek had be- 
come a byword and a reproach. 



SELF-RENUNCIATION . 173 

Many centuries later on another continent a feeble nation 
is engaged in a life and death struggle with a powerful 
enemy. But it was not entered upon in the spirit of self- 
seeking. No sentiment was more frequently uttered than 
that growing out of the conviction that it was not so much 
for the benefit of the contemporaries as for the good of 
those yet unborn. Luxury had not yet undermined civic 
virtue and the contest ended as every such contest ends^ 
not in favor of the strongest but of the most worthy. 

Less than a century ago Germany lay prostrate before 
the overwhelming power of Napoleon. He had been vic- 
torious as long as there had been but little self in his plans. 
The baseness of the self-seeking German princes had 
brought untold misery upon their subjects. But to them 
as to our forefathers the burden became unbearable and 
forgetting self they determined to throw it off. They felt 
that the sufferings of the present, great as they might be, 
were not to be compared with the glory that should fol- 
low. And their faith was not in vain. Just as the de- 
generate Greek subjects of the Macedonian and the Roman 
Empire looked back with pride at the deeds of his fore- 
fathers, even when he was too weak to imitate their exam- 
ples, so the German of to-day no less than the American 
regards the deeds of a century past with an ever-growing 
satisfaction. Degenerate indeed is he who can dwell in 
spirit upon those former days of toil and sacrifice and 
heroism without feeling that he would gladly have shared 
them because, great as may have been the cost, the reward 
is still greater. Yet the success of every holy cause must 
be purchased with sacrifices, not only of blood, which many 
are ready to. make, but of self in a hundred other ways, 
to which a much smaller number of souls is adequate. 
Let us not be misled by our admiration for the past; let 



174 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

US not sigh because we live in these degenerate times, as 
they are often called; there is a future joined to every 
present, and opportunity is never wanting to him who 
will use it. 

It is worth at least a passing remark that many are to- 
day seeking their temporal salvation through the same 
methods that preserved it to the foremost nations of an- 
tiquity. They would make the commonwealth all-power- 
ful, the individual nothing, except so far as he contributed 
his mite to the formation of public opinion. Pew, I be- 
lieve, who advocate the self-abnegation demanded by so- 
cialism are aware that they are advocating a return to a 
condition of society that has been outgrown forever. But 
the obligation of every man to the community is as binding 
now as it ever was, only the recognition of that obligation 
must find expression voluntarily. No man's services to 
his country or to any cause is worth anything if his first 
object is to benefit himself to the exclusion of others. 
When two parties contend for a loaf, each expecting to get 
two-thirds, both are sure to be disappointed. The cate- 
gorical imperative represents our perfect rule of conduct 
and we approach perfection as we approach a realization 
of it in our lives. 

The spirited lines of Scott forcibly express the great fact 
that only the unselfish man can be a lover of his country. 

"High though his titles, proud his name. 
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim ; 
Despite those titles, power and pelf, 
The wretch concentred all in self. 
Living shall forfeit fair renown. 
And doubly dying shall go down 
To the vile dust from whence he sprung, 
Unwept, unhonored and unsung.^' 



SELF-RENUNCIATION. 175 

\.. 

Those nations, both ancient and modern, have made the 
greatest progress among whom the law of self-denial was 
most vigorous in the national consciousness. Otherwise 
it is simply a thing to laugh at, like the silly pride of the 
modern Spaniard or Turk. The nations of the East had 
no coherence, except to some extent the Jewish, because 
their units were held together by an external force. How 
proud were the citizens of Eome to be called by that august 
name, how eager to purchase the title when not born to 
it ! It is not a mere accident that so many founders and 
reformers of Greek states, as well as of Eome, live in le- 
gend as having freely offered their lives for the good of 
their country. The most ignorant could appreciate this 
embodiment of the national consciousness in flesh and 
blood, and feel the inspiration to imitate them. 

After the states of modern Europe began to emerge from 
the darkness of the Middle Ages it was in France first that 
a strong and permanent national feeling was developed; 
and it is a trite remark that France led the civilization of 
modern Europe. National salvation, national greatness, 
civilization in its highest and best sense is only possible in 
a country a maiority of whose citizens voluntarily place 
country before self, even to the extent of all that men hold 
dear. 

I do not forget that patriotism in the vigorous language 
of Dr. Johnson, may be the last refuge of a scoundrel. 
There is little hope for a country where its citizens say "our 
country right or wrong.'' Patriotism is only worthy of 
that sacred name when it puts national honor and honesty 
first and national greatness last, for that greatness is alone 
permanent which is founded upon that rock of truth and? 
right. National power should be used to promote most 
vigorously only those principles that are imperishable in 
human constitutions. 



176 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

A recent writer applies the words of Froude upon Davis^ 
the English navigator, to the case of John Brown, and I 
use them here because they fully describe the condition of 
life that I am now trying to sketch, "A melancholy end 
for such a man — the end of a warrior, not dying Epamin- 
ondas-like on the field of victory, but cut off in a poor 
brawl or ambuscade. Life with him was not a summer 
holiday, but a holy sacrifice offered up to duty, and what 
his master sent was welcome. It was hard, rough, and 
thorny, trodden with bleeding feet and aching brow, the 
life of which the cross is the symbol; a battle which no 
peace follows this side the grave; which the grave gapes to 
finish before the victory is won ; and strange that it should 
be so — ^this is the highest life of man. Look back along 
the great names of history; there are none whose life has 
been other than this. They to whom it has been given to 
do the really highest work in this world, whoever they are, 
Jew or Gentile, Pagan or Christian, warriors, legislators, 
philosophers, priests, poets, kings, slaves — one and all, 
their fate has been the same : the same bitter cup has been 
given them to drink.^^ 

"Whether on the scaffold high. 
Or in the battlers van. 
The fittest place where man can die. 
Is where he dies for man." 

We live in times where personal valor no longer finds 
constant and fit expression in terms of bodily prowess; 
it is less necessary that one or a few shall die for the many. 
But it is not the less necessary that each shall exercise his 
proper share of self-denial that the community receive no 
detriment. Salvation through self-denial is the formula 



SELF-RENUNCIATION. 177 

which expresses objectively the idea embodied in the well- 
known words, salvation through faith. 

In one case we speak in the language of philosophy, in 
the other in the language of theology. Through salvation 
by faith we save ourselves, through salvation by self-denial 
we save our fellow-men. 

Here we have the law of human progress, yet while con- 
stantly recognizing, how constantly do men resist it. 
Against no other law of the spirit does he make such unin- 
terrupted though it may be silent resistance. In order to 
get into the kingdom he is willing to expend ten times the 
strength that would take him into the strait gate, in order 
to get in some other way, provided his feelings of selfish- 
ness be gratified. He wants his own neighbors to see the 
feat of scaling the wall, of breaking a breach, or to know 
how much time he spent on it, or a monument to commem- 
orate the achievement. How many there are who would 
purchase health of body or purity of heart at any price 
except that of a bad habit ! How many there are who 
would purchase learning, public gratitude or posthumous 
fame at any price except that of constitutional disinclina- 
tion to exertion ! 

But God will not have it so. We all must pay the same 
price for real excellence, and no one can pay it for us, and 
that price is self-denial. 

The sentiments with which a people regards the spirit of 
self-denial and self-sacrifice is an index of its place along 
the scale of civilization. The degenerate Carthagenians 
endeavored to purchase the favor of the gods by the sacri- 
fice of their children to Moloch. Many an Indian has 
hoped to purchase heaven by death under the wheels of 
Juggernaut's car. Not a few Christians have sought to 

12 



178 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

purchase the same favor by self-inflicted bodily pains, or 
by large bequests to purposes of charity. But this is only 
offering selfishness for that which self-denial alone will 
purchase. It is not by such means as these that we may 
gain our place among the company of the pure in heart. 
If such a thing were possible for any one he would soon 
feel like a rustic in the company of the Immortals of the 
French Academy. We do not even need the Gospel to teach 
us this. Socrates and Epictetus, with many of their coun- 
trymen, knew better; Cicero and Seneca knew better, in 
spite of their many shortcomings. Yet there are hundreds 
of so-called Christians living to-day who have not learned 
this foundation principle. It is a sad fact but undeniable 
in the history of nations, that selfishness increases with 
national prosperity; yea, here and there outruns it. 

I believe it is true everywhere that the poor are much 
readier to make sacrifices than the rich. It is certainlv 
true that it is not the richest governments that contribute 
most liberally to the promotion of enterprises that are 
worthy in themselves, though they may not be of immediate 
utility. Unquestionably not our millionaires have done 
most to aid the great enterprises that make men wiser 
and better. Yet it is they above all others who, upon 
merely mercenary grounds, ought to contribute most liber- 
ally toward those enterprises which make society stable, and 
to show the poor that all human interests are common 
to all. 

No one has more profoundly fathomed the motives of 
the human heart than that somewhat unamiable philoso- 
pher, Thomas Carlyle, and there is no thought to which 
he more frequently recurs, nor any precept which he en- 
forces with more persistence than this one that self-denial, 
self-sacrifice, self-renunciation, is the beginning of all 



SELF-RENUNCIATION. 179 

moral excellence. Almost in the same words the his- 
torian of European morals says: "The first condition of 
all really great moral excellence is a spirit of genuine self- 
sacrifice and self-renunciation/^ Nor is there anything sur- 
prising in this. So long as our lower and carnal self is 
our master it is not possible for us to follow the guidance 
of our higher and spiritual self. Men in all the stages of 
civilization have instinctively felt this and unconsciously 
recognized it. The Buddha's highest claim to admiration 
lay in the fact that he renounced kingship to minister to 
the poor and humble. The Savior of mankind left a 
greater kingdom for a like purpose. There are no heroes, 
whether real or legendary, so fondly remembered as those 
who have sacrificed themselves for the good of others. The 
Athenians thought no one worthy to reign after King 
Kodrus, who made himself a voluntary offering for the sal- 
vation of his countr}^ 

The Eomans cherished with feelings stronger than ven- 
eration the rememorance of Horatius and Eegulus. Arnold 
Winkelried is held up as an example not only by his own 
countrymen but his devotion to country is regarded as an 
inheritance in which all patriots may share. No man is so 
great that he could not enhance his reputation by saving 
the life of a child at the risk of his own, or sacrificing his 
own in the attempt to do so. Some people may think that 
it is the element of personal bravery that charms men in 
instances such as these. But personal bravery displayed 
upon an unworthy object is mere foolhardiness for which all 
right minded persons feel only contempt. If there be any 
virtue in this it is that of the bull-dog rather than of a 
human being. 

But self-sacrificing for a national cause is not the only 
sacrifice that finds a permanent and cherished place in the 



180 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

human heart. There are no scenes in the Greek mythology 
which poets have dwelt on more fondly and which audi- 
ences tired less of seeing upon the stage than Antigone 
braving the wrath of the cruel Kreon and a horrible death 
in order to perform the last rites of affection over the dead 
bodies of her brothers; than Alkestis laying down her life 
voluntarily that her husband might live ; than the strife be- 
tween Orestes and Pylades as to which should die for the 
other. Few are they in any audience who would not ad- 
mire and applaud such heroic deeds though they might fall 
far short of the nobleness of mind which would enable them 
to do likewise. It is when no element of personal interest 
hinders the soul from beeing an act of self-denial in its di- 
vine loveliness that the highest motives of the human heart 
assert themselves. It is then that the spark kindled from 
heaven is fanned into at least a momentary flame and the 
ignoblest soul manifests its divine origin. The chief spirit- 
ual nourishment of the mediaeval church for centuries was 
the lives of the saints which abounded in acts of self-denial, 
voluntary poverty and devotion to the cause of the poor and 
lowly. The legend which bore the current epithet of the 
golden and which Longfellow has clothed in a modern 
poetic garb is a type of this class of stories. And these 
gained new currency by the example of many whose lives 
are briefly recorded in the New Testament. No matter 
how little is told us of the representative characters therein 
named, we find at least this, that they strove to do their 
Father's will rather than their own. It was not alone the 
divinity of Christ that charmed the world, it was also the 
essential humanity of his disciples that centered not in self, 
but in others. He who would never cease to grow, intellectu- 
ally, morally and spiritually, must engage in a life-long 
contest with the unconscious selfish impulses of his nature. 



SELF-RENUNCIATION. 181 

I am not of those who look back with regret upon those 
good old times, as men of superficial knowledge are apt to 
regard them, and sigh because they are gone never to re- 
turn. Yet I can not but think that in many a good deed 
now done there is an uncommonly large element of selfish- 
ness. The times foster it. This will generally make no 
difference to the recipient, but it detracts from the purity 
of the favor conferred. Not a little good that is done now- 
a-days would not be done were it not certain that it would 
be widely reported. It may be true that as Marcus An- 
toninus says it is in accordance with man's nature to be con- 
cerned for all men ; yet it is equally true that this concern 
is apt to remain a mere sentiment that is never translated 
into action. 

But can the spirit of self-denial never be mistaken? 
Certainly. Men may exercise it so as neither to benefit 
themselves nor others. If not kept under the control of 
reason and an enlightened conscience it leads men astray — 
sometimes widely astray. It is a darkened intellect and a 
perverted conscience that makes the fakir, the dervish, the 
flagellant, and the ascetic. If we did not see in so many 
other matters the perverseness of men to go amiss through 
ignorant fanaticism, the constant tendency to mistake 
form for substance, we should be surprised that any could 
be found who saw virtue in studiously abstaining from 
doing good to others and in doing harm to themselves. 
Equally wrong is the man who denies his reason, who stul- 
tifies himself to believe a dogma almost on the sole ground 
that it is contrary to reason. A man may do violence to 
all his better impulses for what he regards as a temporal 
advantage. The trimmer in politics or religion practices 
self-denial, but it is to no one more evident than to him- 
self, I ween, that he is wronging his own soul. The world 



182 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

belongs to those who can practice self-denial. Few men 
acquire riches by accident: they are generally the reward 
of self-denial in early life. For every man who is poor 
and dependent through circumstances over which he has 
no control, a score are poor from lack of self-denial or 
rightly directed self-denial. For every good deed that we 
fail to do because of inability, we fail of a hundred from 
lack of the power of self-denial. For every young person 
who does not succeed in life from lack of talents a thou- 
sand are but partially successful because they are not wil- 
ling to pay the price in self-denial that alone will purchase 
what all are eager to possess. The bitter taste of the bud 
deters them and they never have the glorious privilege of 
looking back upon the flower that blooms in honest achieve- 
ment. It must not be said of the man who accomplishes 
little in this world from lack of talent to do more, that he 
has failed. They only fail who can but will not, whose 
efforts end where they begin, in self, and whose mental in- 
genuity is chiefly employed in devising means to best serve 
themselves at the expense of their fellow-man without 
being found out. The world in its moments of frivolity 
laughs at the missionary who leaves home and friends to 
wear out his life among savages or those who have re- 
nounced what is best in civilization; but it acknowledges 
in its better moments that he has chosen nobly. A great 
majority of men ridicule the self-denial and devotion of the 
investigator who counts truth and knowledge of more 
value than any other possession; yet they may be re- 
minded in a thousand ways that these choice spirits are the 
salt of the earth and represent the high-water mark of 
human progress. The world is pretty sure to shrug its 
shoulders at those who, born to position, descend volun- 
tarily from their natural place in society to labor among 



SELF-RENUNCIATION. 183 

the lowl}-; yet it is only the self-denying efforts of such 
that keeps the social classes from arraying themselves 
against each other for mutual destruction. 

It is becoming more painfully evident from day to day 
that our traditional political economy needs to be in part 
reconstructed, and merged in or at least largely recon- 
sidered with reference to that wider subject, social ethics. 
No people can be permanently prosperous whose policy it is 
to build up their own enterprises at the expense of all 
other nations. The doctrine of the mutual interdepend- 
ence of all governments has always had some advocates, 
but their ideas are found in books rather than in practice. 
Albeit, there are some clear signs, it seems to me, that 
some of the nations of the earth are beginning in their 
dealings, both with each other and with their own subjects, 
to recognize that secure possessions are more to be valued 
than large ones. And I would fain believe, too, that an 
increasing number of persons are coming to recognize the 
fact that the most valuable possessions are not those that 
can be measured or weighed or counted, but are something 
far less gross, and in several senses far less difficult of at- 
tainment. 

Christianity is pre-eminently the doctrine of self-denial. 
Not that it has not been taught elsewhere in isolated cases ; 
but nowhere else is there so much stress laid on the fact 
that it is better to suffer affliction with the children of 
Ood than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. The 
author of "Four Phases of Morals" truthfully says : "We 
must observe that the Christian is pre-eminently equipped 
with that self-denial and self-control * * * which 
are the necessary postulates of all moral excellence. A 
man who will take the world easily will never take it 
grandly; all excellent things are difficult. The Christian 



184 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

recognizes the difficulty but delights in it as the stout old 
Koman did in the foes which added fuel to his victories, or 
as the strong modern engineer does in mountains, that 
he may show the triumph of his art in boring through 
them or in winding around them. The man of genius de- 
nies himself in a thousand ways that he may work out a 
perfect body for the imaginary ideals that possess him; 
the great soldier denies himself through leagues of hard- 
ships that he may repel the rude invader and preserve the 
honor of his country unstained; and the man of virtue 
must deny himself also, if virtue is a thing which a crea- 
ture of high enterprise and lofty purpose may reasonably 
have to do with." It is every man's bounden duty "to real- 
ize as much goodness as possible in his own personal life 
and in the life of that society of which he is a part, by the 
two-fold process of nursing virtues and weeding out vices : 
an ideal which can never be reached by those who com- 
mence life, after the Epicurean fashion, with a low calcula- 
tion of pleasures and pains, but by those who are inspired 
by the vision of what Plato preached as divine ideas and 
Paul as divine commands.'^ 

The vitality of this doctrine is something wonderful. 
Despite the constant assaults of all the lower impulses in 
man's nature it has lived, has never been without its repre- 
sentatives. It is the vital and vivifying spark that is found 
in every human bosom, and which is almost sure to be 
at least occasionally fanned into a momentary flame. But 
in the heart of the Christian it burns steadily casting light 
upon his pathway and making him a conspicuous object 
among his fellow-men. It must not be lost sight of that 
Christianity does not mean ecclesiasticism, yet people make 
no more frequent mistake than to regard the words Chris- 
tian and member of a Christian church as synonyms. 



SELF-RENUNCIATION. 185 

Often a man's zeal in behalf of his church makes him to- 
tally forgetful of what his profession as a Christian de- 
mands of him. Christ Himself founded no church, but 
only laid down a rule of life the fundamental precept of 
which is that men ought to deny themselves in obedience 
to a higher law, a diviner impulse. But alas how many 
mistake form for substance, ceremony for sacrifice, and a 
less gross form of selfishness for self-denial ! 

It might be supposed that the evolutionary doctrine of 
ethics would look coldly upon the enthusiasm of kindness. 
But it, too, is found upon the side of Christianity when 
comparing the respective merits of egoism and altruism. 
It leaves us in no doubt as to which represents the higher 
law. Its great Apostle expresses surprise "that any one 
should have formulated his experience by saying that the 
conditions to success are a hard heart and a sound diges- 
tion." He regards this formula marvelous, considering 
the many proofs that success, even of a material kind, de- 
pends upon the good offices of others. He further says: 
"That to see that those who care nothing for the feelings 
of others are, by implication shut out from a wide range 
of aesthetic pleasure it needs but to ask whether men who 
delight in dog-fights may be expected to appreciate Beetho- 
ven's Adelaide, or whether Tennyson's In Memoriam 
would greatly move a gang of convicts." 

The pedestrian along the eastern shore of Lake Zug in 
Switzerland may notice near the highway where it crosses 
a narrow valley, a plain monument. Drawing near he may 
read that it was erected to commemorate the brave deed 
of a young man who lost his life in an unselfish but vain 
attempt to rescue two girls who were carried down the 
ravine by a sudden rise of the mountain stream flowing 
through it. Had he died the death of thousands of his- 



186 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

peers he would be quietly sleeping to-day in an unknown 
grave. Though the three persons were irrevocably buried 
in the lake, their neighbors were not willing to let the 
memory of the heroic attempt at rescue be forgotten, and 
they in their humble way immortalized it. In like manner 
Grace Darling, Ida Lewis and others would never have 
been known outside of a narrow circle had not similar deeds 
immortalized them and caused their names to be placed in 
every cyclopedia. 

While it may be true to some extent that the evil which 
men do lives after them, it is not so tenacious of life as 
the good that they have done. Each succeeding biographer 
of the men and women whom the world used to regard as 
bad and only bad finds a little more to commend in their 
lives. In many cases a single good deed has illuminated 
a life which but for it would have been wholly dark. 
Hardly a year passes that we do not hear of some new proj- 
ect to commemorate a life or a deed that had, for a time, 
perhaps for centuries, been forgotten. Time makes a won- 
derful change in the relative importance of human ac- 
tions. Stephen Girard was an important man in his day, 
but he is now remembered not because of his wealth as a 
whole but because of that portion which he devoted to the 
establishment and support of a college for orphans. The 
millionaires of our day will be remembered only so long as 
the monuments of their benevolence endure. But for these, 
future generations will take no more interest in their 
names than it does in that of Croesus or LucuUus. 

It is a sorry spectacle to see a man or woman of intelli- 
gence frittering away a large part of life over such triviali- 
ties as how a thing is to be eaten or how it is to be worn. 
Not that such things are not entitled to any share of our 
attention, but verily not the chief share. What does justly 



SELF-RENUNCIATION. 187 

claim OUT chief attention is self-improvement through the 
diligent and constant search for truth and knowledge, and 
the purification of the soul from vulgar fears and base de- 
sires: those things which tend to lead us in pursuit of 
that which is worthy of a true man or woman. Next in 
order come those objects which tend to elevate the com- 
munity of which we form a part. If we can not do both 
we can at least do one. It is right that charity should be- 
gin at home,, no matter how narrow the circb which you 
designate by this name; but it is worth little if it stops 
there. To do these things so as to accomplish any results 
worthy of the name there is needed no small amount of 
intelligence^, a pure heart and an honest purpose, on the 
part of our better and higher self as against our baser and 
lower. The greater part of our efforts will not be appreci- 
ated by our contemporaries, yet they will not therefore 
have been in vain. The sublimest courage is often the 
courage of failure, the courage to lead a forlorn hope. 
We dare not say, I have done some deeds of benevolence, 
but they were not appreciated or were met with ingratitude, 
henceforth I propose to serve myself only. It is those few 
disinterested, though it may be temporarily unappreciated 
benefits, that are from time to time conferred upon others 
that advance the world, and elevate the human race: all 
the rest that we do perishes with us, or in the doing. 

I believe that the true philosophy of life is found in 
the words of that mother who said, "I have spent more 
than half a lifetime of self-denial in bringing up and 
properly educating a large family, in the constant effort to 
set them a worthy example, and to provide for them every- 
thing really needful. And now, as I begin to see that my 
voluntar}" cares have not been in vain, that my labors do 



188 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION, 

not end with those upon whom they were bestowed, but 
go on in ever mdening circles, I am a thousand times re- 
paid. The seedtime and the sowing that was spent in 
sacrifice is nearly past, but the harvest is becoming richer 
and more abundant as the years go on." 

It is a current tradition that when Anne Boleyn learned 
of her condemnation she said, "I care little what becomes 
of me — my child will at least be royal. '^ The sentiment is 
a noble one and well worthy of the mother of the illus- 
trious Elizabeth. But it may have a wider application. 
It matters little what becomes of each present generation 
if that which succeeds is better and wiser. 

I may fitly close this discourse by a brief reference to one 
of Browning's poems in which as in so many others the 
author gives us his interpretation of life and its rela- 
tion to duty. In ^'The Boy and the x4.ngel'' a boy in a 
monastery follows his craft as a shoemaker, doing his 
work well and praising God. Blaise, the monk, tells him 
that his praise reaches his Creator as surely as the Pope's 
at the Easter Festival in Home. But this did not satisfy 
the youth's ambition; he longed to praise God in some 
great way. In time he realized his ambition, and with 
Gabriel's help became Pope. As there was now no one 
to do the work the boy had left the angel took his place; 
however, the work and the praise were not the boy's. 
Wlien the angel l3ecame conscious of this he went to Rome, 
found there the Pope preparing the great Easter Festival, 
proud of his realized ambition. Gabriel made known to 
him life as he now sees it : man can only do God's work in 
his own proper sphere. The Pope, too, saw his mistake, 
went back to his bench and remaiaed there till he died. A 



SELF-RENUNCIATION. 189 

new Pope dwelt in St. Peters. He died also, and both 
shoemaker and Pope went to God together. 

'"'One vanished as the other died : 
Tiie}^ sought God side by side.'' 

How much better it is to encourage ourselves as well 
as others to do to the best of our ability whatever is worth 
doing rather than to strive for some larger sphere in 
which we may perhaps waste our strength in the struggle, 
so that even if we reach the goal of our ambition we shall 
have little energy left to make ourselves useful in it. If 
we fail our life is sure to fall short of its full fruition and 
it may fall far short. Better is it to be a thoroughly 
honest and competent shoemaker than the inefficient ruler 
of the widest realm the world ever saw, 



ncTioisr AS a factoe m educatiok 

It must be evident to every one who takes note of the 
main current of contemporary thought that it is essen- 
tially materialistic. "Other-worldliness" is one of the least 
prominent characteristics of the present generation. It is | 

bent on having a good time in this world, be the conse- 
quences in the next what they may. In education the cry is, 
"Teach facts," and by facts thus understood are always 
meant external phenomena, rather than the experiences of 
psychic life. It is demanded of teachers that in their in- 
struction they shall lay the chief stress on those things that 
can be weighed and measured and counted. A liberal edu- 
cation, one that is not a direct aid to getting on in the 
world, has come to be almost a thing of the past. 

It is not here contended that this state of affairs i? 
wholly new. More than half a century ago, Thomas Grad- 
grind, who may be taken as the type of a class, said, "JSTow, 
what I want is facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. 
Plant nothing else and root out everything else. You can 
only form the mind of reasoning animals upon facts; noth- 
ing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the 
principle upon which I bring up my own children, and this 
is the principle upon which I bring up these children. 
Stick to facts, sir." Yet, as is so often the case in this 

(190) 



FICTION AS A FACTOR IN EDUCATION. 191 

world reputed to be so thoroughly matter-of-fact, Grad- 
grind, when in sore trouble, was consoled and strengthened 
by two of the most unpractical people imaginable. While, 
then, the clamor for facts is not now heard for the first 
time, it was probably never heard in so many quarters, nor 
does it seem to have been so persistently reiterated. 

In view of these conditions it will be interesting to take 
a passing glance at the part played by fiction, the culture 
of the imagination through poetry and the novel, in the 
education of the human race. Let us begin with the peo- 
ple that may justly be regarded as the torch-bearers of 
civilization. Such a survey, however brief, must make it 
plain that the fictitious element in literature has been 
a very potent force in human progress — a great deal more 
so than what is usually called history. So much that is 
subjective is injected into almost all history that rises 
above the grade of mere annals that if the reader had not 
the names of leading characters to guide him he would 
sometimes be led to question whether two authors who are 
professedly dealing with the same period or persons are do- 
ing so in reality. History, if of any value, must set forth the 
truth; yet as a matter of fact almost all history is re- 
written two or three times in a century, and always ac- 
cording to a standard more or less determined by the per- 
sonal equation of the writer. Less than half a dozen his- 
torical works produced three or four generations ago ar(^ 
still regarded as well worth reading. While it is true that 
time has not dimmed the luster or impaired the value of 
some of the histories that have survived from pre-chris- 
tian times, it might be said of at least a few of these that 
they are the only records we have. If we are unwilling to 
accept their testimony there is nothing to put in their 
place. Plainly, then, the student of history is rarely cer- 



192 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

tain that he is dealing with facts, and sticklers for facts 
can hardly hope to find them except where they can be 
brought under their personal observation or verified by 
experiment. 

A careful study of the laws of the physical universe and 
their application to the affairs of life has probably done 
much to increase the happiness of mankind ; yet as we 
have no method by which we can measure pleasure and 
pain, it would be rash to affirm this with pobitiveness. But 
it can not be denied that our knowledge is far in advance 
of our practice. Would it not be a fortunate thing for 
the world if not another new discovery were made for a 
hundred years to come, to the end that men might have 
time to make full use of what they already know? If 
progress in this direction were barred, the next two or 
three generations would have time to exploit fully and in 
a practical way the truths that are already common prop- 
erty, as well as to give the more earnest heed to man's 
spiritual and moral needs. The saddest reflection sug- 
gested by the history of mankind is that their knowledge 
has always been far in advance of practice. 

The imagination has played a large part in the drama 
of human life and has had much influence in shaping the 
destinies of nations. It enables men to put themselves 
outside of their bodies and above their milieu where they 
may realize with greater vividness the hopes, feelings, emo- 
tions and sentiments of their fellow-beings. When the 
imagination is kept under the control of reason and trained 
by logical methods so that it shall not run into the wild 
extravagances that characterize the literature of the East, 
as exemplified in the Arabian Nights, it is man's noblest 
faculty. Its influence in art, in literature, in morals, 
even in science, can not easily be over-estimated. The 



FICTION AS A FACTOR IN EDUCATION. 193 

grade of civilization that a people has attained can be 
measured by the imaginative literature it has produced and 
delights in. Such being the case, the culture and training 
of the imagination ought to receive a large share of atten- 
tion on the part of educators. 

It is a commonplace among intelligent persons that the 
ancient Athenians were the most cultured people of which 
we have any knowledge. The evidence is of a very varied 
character. The most convincing is that furnished by their 
art, their literature and their philosophy.* But there is 
other evidence of a less direct and tangible character. Liti- 
gants pleaded their own cases in the law-courts. There 
was in Athens a class of men whose functions correspond- 
ed in some measure with that of the modern attorney-at- 
law. But they extended no further than the writing of 
pleas. These were committed to memory by the litigants 
and spoken before the jury. There are still extant a num- 
ber of such pleadings that are classic in form, though the 
questions at issue are often trivial. The speakers were fre- 
quently men of low degree, sometimes of the lowest, yet 
they were sufficiently intelligent to put their cases before 
the jury with vigor and effect. And these juries always 
consisted of hundreds, often of thousands of citizens. How 
many of the lawyers of our day are competent to prepare, 
pleas that are worthy of a moment's consideration as to 
beauty of form? A lawyer with a style is about as often 
met with as a white elephant. And how many modern 
juries composed of but twelve men chosen at random can 
distinguish between grammatical and ungrammatical lan- 
guage? Not one in a thousand. How many citizens 



*This question has been more fully discussed in two essays in 
this volume. 

13 



194 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

who are not professional speakers conld be found even in 
our most intelligent communities who would undertake 
to plead their own case before the ordinary jury, to say 
nothing of a large audience, no matter how carefully they 
prepared beforehand? We are forced to conclude that 
every male Athenian adult, and to a considerable extent 
every educated Greek, was an orator. Take, for example, 
the numerous orations scattered through the works of their 
historians. We do not need to assume that the speeches 
recorded were those actually delivered; but we shall not 
go far wrong if we accept them as embracing the spirit 
and substance of what was said. Most of them, especially 
those found in Thucydides, exhibit a grasp of the situation, 
a discernment of motives, a keenness of analysis and a 
lucidity of exposition that not only bear the marks of veri- 
similitude, but testify likewise to the splendid intellectual 
training of the speakers. This was chiefly due to the so- 
cial conditions that prevailed in Greece, especially in Ath- 
ens. Nearly all the Greeks laid great stress on the abil- 
ity to speak well. The dialogue plays a conspicuous part 
in Greek literature; speaking and hearing rather than 
reading was the mode by which intelligence was gained 
and communicated. The social habits of the Greeks, their 
eagerness to know — which is but a refined form of curios- 
ity, from which it always springs and above which it does 
not often rise — prompted them to investigate every problem 
they encountered, while the paucity of books made them as 
eager to listen as they were themselves ready to contribute 
something to the discussion. So late as the time of the 
Apostle Paul there was no lack of persons on the qui vive 
for what a stranger might say. Under such conditions 
every conceivable problem of human interest was discussed 
in a semi-public way, while problems of a more abstruse 



FICTION AS A FACTOR IN EDUCATION. 195 

character received the careful attention of smaller coteries 
of philosophers. No one needs to be told what a superla- 
tively excellent mental discipline it is to be associated with 
persons who habitually express themselves with precision 
and conciseness, nor how much modern life loses in this 
respect by the reading habit. The finest thoughts are 
only half comprehended in the haste to get over many 
pages. Little time is taken for reflection and none for re- 
production. 

If by education we mean the putting in action all 
those forces that enlighten the understanding, stimulate 
the power of thought and cultivate the taste, the ancient 
Greeks had formulated, in a large measure unconsciously, 
an educational system that has not been surpassed, prob- 
ably not equaled. That it had its limitations and what 
they were has to some extent been pointed out in another 
paper. "\^nien we consider the small number of free citi- 
zens that Athens contained at any one time and the extra- 
ordinary large proportion of great men among them we are 
compelled to admit that a like condition of affairs has never 
existed since. Indeed it is doubtful whether during any 
one century in the history of the world there have lived as 
many men that have exercised so profound an influence on 
human thought as those who spent the whole or part of 
their lives in one small city in the century that was about 
equally divided by the year B. C. 400. What will seem 
most surprising to many persons is the fact that this in- 
tellectual pre-eminence was produced upon what would at 
the present day be regarded as pitifully meager pedagogical 
material. This consisted of little else than the Homeric 
Poems and political institutions of such a type that the 
intellectual powers of those living under them were stimu- 
lated to the highest degree. The Greek people were in a 



196 WISDOM AND -WILL IN EDUCATION, 

large measure educated in fiction. Of course, there is 
fiction and fiction. There is fiction that is true to life and 
there is fiction that is but the wild product of an uncon- 
trolled imagination. Greek fiction was true to life. It 
portrayed the passions, the desires, the emotions, the so- 
cial conditions of real life: conjugal fidelity, romantic 
love, parental and filial affection, sorrow for the dead, per- 
sonal bravery, indignation at real or supposed grievances, 
cunning, fortitude, patriotism, resignation, and so on. 
Well might their greatest critic, the "master of those who 
know," say that poetry is more philosophical than history. 
He explains that it is not the purpose of the poet to set 
forth reality, but rather that which is possible according 
to the laws of probability and necessity. Or, as the author 
of "The Last Days of Pompeii" expresses it, "The first 
art of the Poet (the Creator) is to breathe the breath of 
life into his creatures — the next is to make their words 
and actions appropriate to the era in which they are to 
speak and act. No man who is thoroughly aware of what 
Prose Fiction has become — of its dignity, of its influence, 
of the manner in which it has gradually absorbed all sim- 
ilar departments of literature, of its power in teaching 
as well as amusing — can so far forget its connection with 
History, with Philosophy, with Politics — its utter harmony 
with Poetry and obedience to Truth — as to debase its na- 
ture to the level of scholastic frivolities : he raises scholar- 
ship to the creative, and does not bow the creative to the 
scholastic." Though Greek fiction, or poetry, if that name 
be preferred, attained its final and classic form in the 
Iliad and the Odyssey, we know from the tragedies and 
from other sources that these poems represent a compara- 
tively small part of an immense mass of similar tradition. 
Owing to the innate propensity of the human mind for con- 



FICTION AS A FACTOR IN EDUCATION. I97 

Crete thinking, names stand for types. Thus the poet 
arouses an interest in his men and women when clothed in 
flesh and blood and named that could be affected in no 
other way. Impersonal character studies are to most peo- 
ple insufferably dull reading. To the majority of the 
Greeks their national heroes were real persons, and some 
of them may have been so, but others judged more cor- 
rectly: yet even with this deduction their legends had 
their interest and value, as they still have. They are por- 
trayals of Greek life, thought, and institutions. They 
could scarcely be less true if such persons as Agamem- 
non and Achilles, Hector and Andromache, Ulysses and 
Penelope and many others never existed. In this re- 
spect they are to be classed with the great novels of which 
the present century has produced such a number that it 
seems invidious to name any. It would be hard, if not 
impossible, to point out works professing to be history 
that are truer to life than Waverle}^, Guy Mannering, and 
Ivanhoe; than Tom Jones or Lorna Doone or Eomola. 
AVhat single book gives the reader a more just idea of the 
means and methods by which France was consolidated than 
Quentin Durward; or of the character and last days of 
Charles the Bold, than Anne of Geierstein ; or of the mor- 
als of a certain class of Englishmen and English women 
during the Napoleonic era, than Vanity Fair, or of the 
feelings of the common people in France during the same 
period, than the Erckman-Chatrian novels? In all these 
the purely fictitious is no more than the frame in which 
the picture is set or the canvas on which it is painted. It 
may be compared to the sugar-coating on the pill; the 
medicine thus disguised is easier to swallow while its effi- 
cacy is in nowise impaired. The life of Washington as a 
whole is none the less true or his character none the less 



198 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

correctly portrayed if the story of the hatchet be a myth; 
nor is Tell any the less truly a representative man of his 
time if a person bearing this name never existed. The 
tragic death of Antigone, as represented by the poet, for 
performing what she believed to be a pious duty moves us 
no less profoundly than the closing scene in the cell of 
Socrates as set forth by the historian. For the culture of 
the mind and heart, psychological truth is more valuable 
than the historical verities; it is neither limited in time 
nor confined by space. Hamerton has well stated the 
case when he says, "Thackeray and Balzac will make it 
possible for our descendants to live over again in the Eng- 
land and France of to-day. Seen in this light the novel- 
ist has a higher office than merely to amuse his contem- 
poraries ; he hands them down all living and talking to the 
remotest ages." Thackeray himself said, "Out of the 
fictitious book I get the expression of the life, of the times, 
of the manners, of the merriment, of the dress, the plea- 
sure, the laughter, the ridicule of society; the old times 
live over again and I tread in the old country of England. 
Can the heaviest historian do more for me.'' 

If we desire to harmonize our conduct with the moral 
order of the world or contemplate the manifestation of the 
laws of beauty and truth we can find lessons anywhere 
and everywhere. 

The common people of mediaeval Europe fed the crav- 
ings of their moral nature almost entirely on fairy tales 
and legendary lore of a similarly unhistorical character. 
Amid the social chaos of a thousand jesiTs the sagas of the 
Kibelungen Circle, the stories of the Knights of the Eound 
Table and the myths that attached themselves to the name 
of Charlemagne— the last two especially — are noteworthy 
for certain moral qualities that pervade them in spite of 



FICTION A8 A FACTOR IN EDUCATION. 199 

much that grates harshly on ijiodern nerves. The Gesta 
Romanorum and Aesop's Fables, with their numerous 
progeny, are more prosaic, more allegorized and more di- 
rectly didactic. While much of this literature has its som- 
ber side, I recall but one popular allegory that sets forth 
in detail the career of a successful villain, namely Reynard 
the Fox. Yet even this cunning rogue is more shrewd than 
wicked. Usually he makes his enemies to fall into the 
same pit they had digged for him. Generally the authors 
of mediaeval romances of whatever name or sort linger 
with evident satisfaction on the virtues of courage, self-sac- 
rifice, chastity and their kin. They rarely fail to make 
prominent those higher aspirations that dwell in the bo- 
soms of almost all men and at times influence even the 
worst. In spite of the fact that the founder of Chris- 
tianity manifested a deep interest in children and that 
his immediate successors followed his example the peda- 
gogy of the Christian Church almost up to our own day 
was brutal in the extreme. Not only is this true of the 
schools, but family government was usually of the same 
type. Hardly anybody seems to have cared to take the 
trouble to understand children. Every real or supposed 
delinquency was treated as a willful crime, not as the re- 
sult of an error of judgment. The government and train- 
ing of children remained essentially heathen long after 
Europe had become nominally Christian. The Roman 
Orbilius, whom the poet Horace has immortalized with the 
epithet "plagosum," has had a numerous spiritual prog- 
eny. I remember a saying of Luther's to the effect that he 
was whipped at school fourteen times in a single half-day. 
At home he fared but little better. I recall but one child 
that is treated by an ancient classical author with marked 
interest and affection: it is the boy Ascanius. But he is 



200 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

chiefly of importance to Virgil because he is destined to 
be the progenitor of a royal house. It is true Plato, Quin- 
tillian and other writers have more or less to say about the 
training of children ; but the former regards them as a sort 
of necessary evil, a species of wild animal that needs to 
be tamed before anything can be made of him.* 

Careful students of Shakespeare have called attention to 
the fact that in spite of his many-sidedness he shows little 
sympathy with children and child-life. When he appears 
to take any interest in children — and this is rarely — ^his 
interest is akin to that which we find manifested in Greek 
and Roman antiquity; it is not because of what they are 
but because of what they may become or on account of the 
importance of their ancestors. With all his myriad-mind- 
edness the prince of poets could or would not grasp the sig- 
nificance of childhood in the development of the human 
race. That it is possible, in a great measure, to change 



*Terence says: "He is sadly mistaken, at least in my opinion, 
who holds that the government is more potent or more stable 
which constrains by force rather than binds by amity. This is my 
way of thinking, and so I have made up my mind. He who per- 
forms his duty under compulsion only does so as long as he thinks 
he is watched. When he believes that he is not observed he re- 
turns to his natural state of mind. He whom you bind by a 
favor acts in sincerity, seeks to repay in kind, and, whether 
present or absent, remains the same. This is a father's duty: 
to accustom his son to do right of his own accord rather than 
from fear of another. This is the difference between a father 
and a master. Let him who can not do this acknowledge that 
he does not know how to manage his children." 

These reflections are not original with the Roman poet. Socra- 
tes and other Greek thinkers had said the same thing centuries 
before. That you can not always trust to mild measures goes 
without saying; that they ought to be the rule, not the excep- 
tion, should be equally self-evident. 



FICTION AS A FACTOR IN EDUCATION. 201 

the course of events by the judicious training of children 
seems not to have occurred to him. Most of his dramas 
show that a fundamental article of his creed was, If you 
do wrong, if you sin against the moral order of the world 
you will surely be punished for your evil deeds; but it does 
not seem to have occurred to him that society is under 
obligations so to train the rising generation that when it 
comes upon the scene of active life it shall deviate from the 
right as little as possible. 

Interest in childhood and children really dates from the 
time of Eousseau. Of this paradoxical man it may almost be 
said that he discovered children; he at least succeeded in 
convincing the world that they have rights that adults are 
bound to respect. No single writer has contributed so 
much toward revolutionizing the current theories of educa- 
tion as he. Everybody read his books, and to read was to 
be converted to his theory. Here was a man who at last 
realized to its full significance that instruction should be 
adapted to the child, not the child forced to conform as well 
as might be to a ready-made system. As no one had ever 
seriously attempted to put in practice such a theory as he 
advocated, except possibly on a small scale, he was obliged 
to resort to fiction to show how his plans were to be carried 
out. Like all writers of fiction he exaggerated. Not only 
did he paint social conditions darker than they were, but 
he proposed reforms than can never be realized to the ex- 
tent that he believed possible. In order to get something 
he demanded a great deal. In order to make his readers 
see the need of a process of purification for the social system 
he boldly asserted that society was rotten to the core. In 
order to expose the defects of the current educational meth- 
ods he declared unequivocally that they were without a 
single redeeming feature. Except for him we should never 



202 WI8D0M AND WPLL IN EDUCATION. 

have had Pestalozzi and all that his name implies in the 
history of modern education. 

Among England's great writers Wordsworth early in life 
showed a deep interest in children and gave his studies of 
child-life an artistic form. Before the year 1800 he had writ- 
ten, "We Are Seven/' "Anecdotes for Fathers," "The Idiot 
Boy/' "Matthew/' and "Huth." During his whole life 
he occasionally recurred to similar themes, though the pub- 
lic was for a long time rather indifferent. Though Lamb 
might find fault with Wordsworth's poetry because "the 
instructions conveyed in it were too direct; they don't 
slide into the mind of the reader when he is imagining no 
such thing/' Wordsworth was fully aware of this and con- 
tinued his chosen course with a full knowledge of what he 
was doing.* He said, "Every great poet is a teacher; I 
wish to be considered as a teacher or as nothing." Still 
some of his teaching might have been more effective if it 
had been less obtrusive, and a good deal of his poetry 
would probably be less tiresome if less didactic. 

About the same time Miss Edgeworth with her Tales 
contributed a good deal to dispel the popular fallacy that 
teaching the young is a mere trade that can be picked up 
by anybody, and promoted the enlightenment of the Brit- 
ish public on the importance of a better education for the 
young. The pedagogic influence of such female writers 
as Mrs. Barbauld, Hannah More, Fanny Burney, Maria 
I^dgeworth, Jane Austen and others seems to have been 
helpful and far-reaching ; yet educational reforms in Great 
Britain went their own way and were but slightly influ- 



*In 1809 there appeared in London' two volumes of "Poetry far 
Children, Entirely Original." By the Author of Mrs. Leicester's 
School (Charles and Mary Lamb), The edition must have been 
very small, as copies are excessively rare. 



FICTION AS A FACTOR IN EDUCATION. 203 

enced by Continental thought. The female writers above 
named, however, did much to enlighten the general public 
and improve the elementary schools, or at least the instruc- 
tion given in them. It is somewhat remarkable that En- 
glish pedagogy of a certain type owes so much to women, 
though it is perfectly natural that this should be so, and 
the Continent so little, which may be regarded as unnat- 
ural. About 1775 Mrs. Barbauld's "Early Lessons" ap- 
peared, and the fact is only mentioned here because it is 
said to have been published, at a tiine when, as Hannah 
More said, there was nothing for children to read between 
Cinderella and the Spectator. Extracts from the writings 
of this gifted woman were quite numerous in the reading- 
books used by men and women not yet past middle life. 
In Germany Campe's Eobinson Junior passed through 
more than fifty editions before the end of the eighteenth 
century. It was one of the first books written expressl}^ 
for children. In his day Luther found reason to exclaim, 
"This is a hard world for girls," and if he had lived three 
hundred years later he might still have added "and indeed 
for all children." Happily for them they were not aware 
of it. 

It may strike the average reader as somewhat amusing 
to hear Charles Dickens classed among the great educators 
— this man whom most people regard as the author of but 
one serious book, "A Child's History of England;" yet 
if the work of an educator be to enlighten public opinion 
and to interest his readers in the training of the young in 
a large sense, Dickens was pre-eminentl}^ an educational 
reformer. He instructed the public without the public 
being aware of it. Horace said long ago: "Quamquam 
ridentem dicere verum quid vetat? ut pueris olim dant 
crustula blandi Doctores elementa velint ut discere prima." 



204 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

This method of instruction Dickens employed on a large 
scale and with eminent success. Dean Stanley said of him, 
"He taught the world great lessons of the eternal value 
of generosity, of purity, of kindness and unselfishness.'^ 
And Webster was not far afield when he said that Dickens 
did more to ameliorate the condition of the English poor 
than all the great statesmen Great Britain sent to Parlia- 
ment. If a Parliamentary committee had reported on the 
condition of such establishments as Dotheboys Hall and 
Stone Lodge, how many persons would have read their re- 
port ? How many would have believed it ? Yet we are as- 
sured that this writer of fiction made such concerns hence- 
forth impossible. What higher praise could any man 
covet than to have it said of him, "He has not only pleased 
us — ^he has softened the hearts of a whole generation. He 
has made charity fashionable; he awakened pity in the 
hearts of sixty millions of people. He made a whole gen- 
eration keep Christmas with acts of helpfulness to the poor, 
and every barefoot boy in the streets of England and Amer- 
ica to-day fares a little better, gets fewer cuffs and more 
pudding" because Charles Dickens wrote. If it is the high- 
est attainment of art to conceal art, Dickens was a master 
artist. He seems to have always to have written with a 
purpose, though few people suspected it. As tributary to 
the main theme of some of his books it was essential that 
he should hold up to ridicule or to execration such crea- 
tures as Creakle, Choakumchild, Squeers, Pecksniff and 
their like. How he interested and instructed the public 
everybody knows. Dickens was not only the first English 
author to assign a conspicuous place to children in his 
works of fiction, but he created types that will endure a? 
long as his writings. He possessed that consummate artis- 
tic skill which enabled him to make children interesting 



FICTION AS A FACTOR IN EDUCATION. 205 

without making them unnatural. Little Dorrit, Little 
Nell, Little Paul, Oliver Twist and others of his juvenile 
characters have become household words. 

Eecent French literature brings to our attention some 
interesting children of both sexes. Little Gavroche is a 
masterly study of the typical Paris gamin. But his un- 
timely end leaves a sad impression on the mind of the 
reader. An English writer would hardly have closed the 
career of the poor waif as Hugo has done. On the other 
hand the vicissitudes of Cosette, in spite of her ignoble 
origin, arouse a multitude of varied emotions in the reader 
and exhibit the remarkable gifts of the great Frenchman 
in a striking light. Indeed, Hugo, is at his best when por- 
traying children. Eose and Blanche, in the "Wandering 
Jew," are two girls that hold the attention of the reader 
through a long and somewhat rambling story. The myriad 
minded Balzac is also at home in this field. Little Pierre 
in George Sand's Mare au Liable is a delightful study 
and serves to show both the skill of the distinguished au- 
thor and her insight into the juvenile mind. German lit- 
erature, too, possesses an extensive gallery of children's 
portraits; which is but natural for the land that has pro- 
duced the charming Tales collected by the Brothers Grimm 
and others. The novelists had lovingly studied children 
long before the psychologists thought of doing so, and 
many of them were quite as successful, if they did not 
follow strictly scientific methods. Verily, ours is the age 
of children. 

Just as we can gauge the culture of an individual by the 
kind of fiction he reads when left to his own choice, so we 
can, at least in a great measure estimate the moral qualities 
of a nation by the imaginative literature on which it feeds. 
It is perhaps unduly venturesome to pronounce judgment 



206 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

uppn a people's literature except after a very wide reading ; 
yet I am compelled to believe that there is a sad lack of 
that imaginative element in French literature, including 
its poetry, as well as in that of the Latin nations generally, 
which discerns intuitively the moral order of the world 
and seeks to represent it concretely both in the life of in- 
dividuals and in the social group. No German or English 
poet would treat the memory of a national character of 
such prominence and sanctity as Joan of Arc, as Voltaire, 
the greatest name in French literature has treated hers. 
Matthew Arnold rightly says : "When we look at the popu- 
lar literature of the French at this moment and at the life 
of which this literature of theirs is the index, one is 
tempted to make a goddess out of a word of their own, and 
then, like the town-clerk of Ephesus, to ask, 'What man 
is there that knoweth not that the city of the French is a 
worshipper of the great goddess Lubricity ?' " French 
literature is primarily scientific in spirit; then ascetic in 
form, and only lastly ethical in purpose. In English fic- 
tion these three attributes are reversed. 

Of Germany's great literary trinity, at least two mem- 
bers, Lessing and Schiller, persistently keep the moral ele- 
ment in the foreground, while Goethe divides his atten- 
tion about equally between the three factors. Is it too 
much to say that the remarkable growth and expansion of 
the Germanic peoples, especially those whose native speech 
is English, as compared with the static condition of the Latin 
races, is largely due to their view of 'life as reflected in 
their imaginative literature ? The person who fears not 
God nor regards man is a favorite character in French fic- 
tion. Not so in English. The English have the reputa- 
tion of being eminently practical ; but in their fiction they 
are pronounced idealists. The ever recurrent theme, the 



FICTION AS A FACTOR IN EDUCATION, 207 

one on which constant changes are rung, is the need of 
moral and social regeneration. In the realm of the imag- 
ination no leading part must be assigned to the man or 
woman that is out of harmony with the moral order, by a 
writer who seeks popularity. What is morally hideous 
must be kept in the background. In French fiction the 
conditions are in a great measure reversed. The villain 
is a favorite character. Ignoble characters and the social 
conditions amid which he moves and thrives are a favorite 
theme. Noble characters are not lacking, but they are 
too often weak; they arouse our sympathy more than they 
excite our admiration. They seem to be created merely 
to provide victims for the strong and wicked. 

America has not been behind the other civilized nations 
in assigning an important place to children in its literature 
of fiction. Many of the novels of the last half century 
are veritable revelations in this regard. It would be an 
interesting study for one who had the time and the ca- 
pacity for such work, to extract from representative recent 
novels the varied conceptions of childhood as set forth by 
their authors. What has already been done has shown 
that Wordsworth was right when he called the child father 
to the man^ and that the field for the study of child-t3^pes 
is almost as illimitable as that offered for the study of 
adults. It would not be the less interesting to estimate, so 
far as that is possible, the debt the children of the present 
generation owe to these delightful and instructive studies. 
There is no doubt that the important place assigned to 
children in modern fiction has produced the most far- 
reaching results, at the same time that it is of permanent 
psychological importance. As has already been shown, an- 
tiquity took little interest in children. The Middle Ages 
followed its example. Of all the Greek poets Euripides^ 



208 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

had the widest sympathies and the largest intellectual out- 
look, if not the deepest penetration. He brings several 
children on the stage in his dramas. But what caricatures 
they are ! He shows at once that he knew nothing about 
the mind of the child, for we may be sure that the chil- 
dren of his day were not so unlike those of our own that 
they talked and acted like adults. He makes it plain to 
his readers that he never thought it worth while, — perhaps 
he considered it beneath his dignity, — to tr}^ to comprehend 
a child^s thoughts and feelings. 

The wide currency of the fables attributed to Aesop has 
already been alluded to. In fact, the Fable, the Allegory 
and the Parable or Story have from time immemorial been 
favorite vehicles of instruction among peoples both civilized 
and uncivilized. The phenomenal popularity of Bunyan's 
v/orks, especially his "Pilgrim's Progress," the greatest 
and best sustained allegory ever written, is well known. 
While it is not historically true, and the author's dramatis 
fersonae never existed u.nder the names he gives to them, 
they are real men and real women nevertheless; the situ- 
ations in which he places them are so true to life that every 
Christian recognizes at a glance the experience they are 
designed to portray. Christ frequently conveys His les- 
sons in the form of a parable, and those of Jotham and 
N"athan in the Old Testament are among the best of their 
kind. The fables current under the name of Pilpay be- 
long to the oldest in existence. Their origin reaches back 
to the remotest antiquity. "Tn India from the earliest 
time the parable or example has been the recognized 
method of conveying moral instruction. In the didactic 
literature, some general truth or some rule of life is stated 
in the form of a maxim and a fable or other story is added 
as a concrete instance. The folk-lore of which these are 



FICTION AS A FACTOR IN EDUCATION. 209 

a reflex is not the exclusive property of the great religions 
of India, but is common to Buddhism, Jainism and Brah- 
nianism alike." A selection from these fables is contained 
in one of the earliest books printed; and their popularity 
is attested by the fact that four editions were issued from 
the press in Ulm between 1483 and 1485. In about a cen- 
tury the number of editions had increased to seventeen. 
Professor Lanman says : "The great number of editions of 
the work and their rapid succession are the best proof of 
its importance as a means of instruction and amusement 
at the beginning of the age of printing. The examples 
themselves had doubtless pointed the moral of many an an- 
cient homily before the days of Gutenberg." 

Notwithstanding Christ's rebuke to those who thought 
he ought to ignore children, it was not till after the lapse 
of nearly eighteen centuries that the world began to take 
his exhortation to heart. Both Christians and non-Chris- 
tians now sought to turn toward the most important mem- 
bers of the family. Through literature, in fiction and in 
life, practical philanthropists began to labor with increas- 
ing earnestness for the amelioration of their condition and 
to make some amends for the long neglect. At last their 
claims upon the adult world received recognition here and 
there. It hardly admits of a doubt that the relatively 
rapid progress of pedagogic science withilu the last half 
century is more due to fiction than to any other single 
agency. Its unlimited resources enable the novelist to 
study and exhibit society from every possible point of view. 
AVliile then fiction has from time immemorial been the 
greatest teacher of the world it has recently become not 
only a preacher but a practical reformer. 

If we were to eliminate from the literature of the world 
the element that is usually regarded as fictitious, all the 

14 



210 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION, 

delightful aroma that pleases and attracts would go with 
it. Such a process would deprive us of H omer and Virgil 
and the great tragedies of ancient Greece. It would take 
from us the Nibelungen sagas, the Divina Commedia, Don 
Quixote and Faust. It would expunge the greater part of 
our poetry and the most attractive of our prose. If it did 
not sweep away wholly the fruitage it would leave us little 
of the bloom of what men have thought and felt and striven 
for. It would make the vast field of human experience one 
dead level of uniformity instead of the varied and instruc- 
tive panorama of mountain and hill and valley, of sea and 
lake and river that is spread before us whenever we become 
absorbed in some great literary masterpiece. The serious 
question is not, Can our boys and girls, and our adults, too, 
for that matter, afford to read fiction? it is rather. What 
fiction shall they read? 

Whatever may be thought of the dictimi that the true 
artist must neither preach nor teach, it has never been 
generally recognized by the English-speaking people. 
Their great writers have made it a paramount object to har- 
monize the conduct of men with the moral order of the 
world, and to lead them to a recognition of this all-per- 
vading law. That the poet should be a teacher rather 
than a creator was a belief that inspired Milton, Words- 
worth, Shelley,* Tennyson, Browning and an innumerable 
host on both sides of the Atlantic. The same creed is con- 
stantly cropping out in those writers of fiction that best 
hold their ground in popular esteem. On the other hand 
poets who, like Keats and Swinburne put the sensuous fac- 
tor in the foreground are either without a well-defined po- 
sition in English letters or are not generally read. While, 
then, it is true that the English school system has always 
left much to be desired, it has been the conviction of the 



FICTION AS A FACTOR IN EDUCATION. 211 

leaders of British thought that the teaching agencies should 
take a wider scope. The school has been regarded as but 
one of the many forces by which the body politic is to 
be enlightened and stimulated. The result has Justified 
this half unconscious faith. Where the school has been 
looked upon as the sole, or at least the principal agency for 
moral instruction the result is almost sure to be disappoint- 
ing, as has been demonstrated by the recent experience of 
France. 

As the Eoman poet would not voluntarily take refuge 
under the same tree during a shower nor embark in the 
same boat with one who neglected the gods, we should 
with equal prudence stand aloof from those who are un- 
willing to enter with us the delightful region of the imag- 
ination to seek there surcease from the sorrows and disap- 
pointments of practical experience and to gain new 
strength and new inspiration to sustain us in our labors 
for the Good, the Beautiful, the Just and the True. Wisely 
does Thackeray say, "Novels are sweets. All people with 
healthy literary appetites love them." 

I can here quote with entire approval some words from 
Euskin's Introduction to an edition of Grimm's German 
Popular Stories. "Every fairy tale worth recording at all 
is the remnant of a tradition possessing a true historical 
value, — ^historical, at least in so far as it has naturally' 
arisen out of the mind of a people under special circum- 
stances, and risen not without meaning, nor removed alto- 
gether from their sphere of religious faith. It sustains 
afterward natural changes from the sincere action of the 
fear or fancy of successive generations; it takes new color 
from their manner of life and new forms from their chang- 
ing moral temper. As long as these changes are natural 
and effortless, accidental and inevitable, the story remains 



212 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

essentially true, altering its form, indeed, like a flying 
cloud, but remaining a sign of the sky; a shadowy image, 
as truly a part of the great firmament of the human mind 
as the light of reason which it seems to interrupt. But 
as the fair deceit and innocent error of it can not be in- 
terpreted nor restrained by a willful purpose and all addi- 
tions to it by art do but defile, as the shepherd disturbs 
the flakes of morning mist with smoke from his fire of 
dead leaves." The editor himself says : "Among the most 
pleasing of the German tales are those in which animals 
support the leading characters. They are perhaps more 
venerable in their origin than the heroic and fairy tales. 
They are not only amusing by their playful and dramatic 
character, but instructive by the purity of their moralit3^ 
Justice always prevails, active talent is everywhere success- 
ful, the amiable and generous qualities are brought forward 
to excite the sympathy of the reader, and in the end are 
constantly rewarded by triumph oyer lawless power." 



HEEEDITY AND ENVIRONMENT. 

The belief in heredity, in the transmission of certain 
mental qualities from father to son, is as old as the re- 
corded history of the human race. Without entering into 
a discussion of the origin of tribal society, we find already 
among the Israelites a strongly marked feeling of exclusive- 
ness growing out of their belief in a descent from a com- 
mon ancestor, in virtue of which they belonged to a higher 
order of men than the Semitic tribes by whom they were 
surrounded. Though Christianity in its inception was 
intended by its founders to break down the middle wall 
of partition between Jew and Gentile, the early Christians 
attached great importance to the evidence that its author 
was a legitimate descendant through both parents from the 
father of God's chosen people. After the adoption of sacer- 
dotal celibacy the transmission of merit from father to 
legitimate son became impossible. On the other hand 
it may be argued that the doctrine of apostolic succession 
was but the reappearance of the same belief in another form. 

It is well known that the ancient Greeks laid so much 
stress upon a legitimate parentage that their idea of the 
state both in theory and practice was entirely founded upon 
it. Only under exceptional circumstances were persons of 
alien birth admitted to civil rights. The Spartans traced 

(213) 



214 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

the genealogy of their kings to Herakles; and Leonidas 
felt the force of the heroic blood in his veins when he re- 
sisted the onset of the Persians at Thermopylae, though 
his divine ancestor was removed from him by twenty gen- 
erations. Aristotle argues at length to prove that some 
men deserve to be free and others to be slaves by their very 
nature; that particular peoples are born to be subjects to 
others ; and that it is nearly or quite impossible to change 
this natural relation by artificial means. And it is not yet 
proved that his doctrines were fundamentally erroneous. 
He maintains further that the best, the most worthy, ought 
always to bear rule in the commonwealth. The most 
worthy were, however, not so because of their character, 
as we understand this term; their pre-eminence rested al- 
most entirely on the accident of birth into the ruling class. 
We find the same notion an article of the popular creed 
in ancient Eome. It was professed by the patricians and 
generally admitted by the plebeians. The members of 
the Julian family were invested with an odor of quasi- 
sanctity because of their descent from Aeneas, the reputed 
progenitor of the Roman people. More was expected of a 
Scipio or a Fabius than of a novus homo, because it was 
assumed as a matter beyond question that with the name 
he had also a large measure of the virtues that were tra- 
ditionally associated with it. On the other hand some 
families, like the Claudian, were notorious for the traits 
that made them either feared or despised by a large portion 
of their countrymen. With what scrupulous care do the 
reigning families of Europe guard against contamination 
by intermarriage with persons of common blood ! Just as 
the history of ancient Eome is little more than an amplified 
biography of a score or two of its leading families, so the 
history of modern Europe may be pretty fully traced in the 



HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT, 215 

record of its leading dynasties. So completely has the 
great mass of mankind been held spellbound by what many 
men regard as a mere delusion that we have no political 
history, until comparatively recent times, that is not com- 
pletely dominated by it. 

No man that has ever lived was less influenced by purely 
sentimental considerations than the first Napoleon. He 
looked forward only, not back. He aimed at tangible re- 
sults of a strictly practical kind, viewed from his personal 
standpoint. Yet the time came, and it was when he was 
at the acme of power, when he found it advisable to 
strengthen his position among the monarchs of Europe by 
intermarriage with one of its oldest dynasties. One might 
suppose that a man who had achieved what he had, by 
the force of genius alone, would take a keen pleasure in 
casting ridicule on the pretended claims of superiority 
made by the contemporary sovereigns from whom he had 
compelled obeisance, by showing the world that he had no 
need of the adventitious support of a hereditary royalty. 
But he had a mightier force than genius to reckon with, 
and he was compelled to bow to it. The time came when 
he saw himself forced to secure for himself and especially 
for his successors the prestige that noble birth alone could 
give. He seems to have believed that a sentiment would 
hold for all time to come what force had gained in less 
than a generation. But in the end he was sadly mistaken. 

It is hard in our day to conceive of anything more ridicu- 
lous than the tenacity with which many an insignificant 
nobleman, whose only tangible possessions are his debts, to 
use an oxymoron, clings to his pedigree, unless it be the 
recognition of his silly pretensions by persons who display 
good judgment in most other matters. 

It is a tendency of the human mind to expect something 



216 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

more than ordinary from the descendants of an extraor- 
dinary man. There are few persons who will not go at 
least a little out of the way to get a glimpse of a man who 
bears a name he has inherited from a distinguished an- 
cestor. Thoiigh the teachings of Christianity have from 
the beginning been diametrically against anything that 
savors of caste, the Defender of the Faith or his most 
Christian majesty would have scouted the suggestion to put 
himself on an equality with any of his subjects, even 
though they might have had an undisputed claim to an un- 
questionable apostolic succession. So widely do men's 
professions often diverge from their practice. 

Strange as it may seem, the doctrine of the essential 
equality of all men on a practical basis did not find its 
most vigorous and most eloquent defenders among the 
clergy, but among a class of thinkers who acknowledged 
scant allegiance to the Christian church. This doctrine 
took its rise in France in the middle of the last century, 
and found its first application in the sphere of the state in 
the American Declaration of Independence; yet with the 
usual inconsistency the signers of that document gave the 
lie to their professions by holding in slavery some of their 
fellow beings on the ground that they were the inferiors 
of their masters. Plainly enough "all men" to them did 
not mean every man. We are here reminded of the lamen- 
tations of the Roman aristocracy over the loss of their lib- 
erties, a loss which in the mouths of most of them meant 
no more than the curtailment of the privilege of plunder- 
ing those who had no redress. The ancients, who never 
questioned the justice of slavery as a status, did not deny 
that it admitted of exceptions. They freely recognized 
that an inherited social condition does not predicate a ser- 
vile intellect. Accordingly the manumission of slaves be- 



HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT. 217 

cause of talent or of services rendered was of frequent 
occurrence. The notions of political equality prevalent in 
all civilized countries a little more than a hundred years 
ago had not yet advanced beyond those maintained by 
Aristotle. "Man^' was not necessarily conterminous with 
'Tiuman beings," nor did mere manhood postulate a claim 
to the rights of citizenship. 

History thus clearly testifies to the almost universal be- 
lief in heredity; and the belief is still widely held in one 
form or another. For thousands of years it has been regarded 
as an almost axiomatic truth that one man is by nature 
better, of higher worth, than another, and that this superi- 
ority is inherited not only by individuals but by classes or 
castes, by those forming the social environment wherein the 
individual moved and had his being. Modern historians 
admit the truth of this belief, so often and so persistently 
maintained by the ancients, by attributing the decay of 
most pre-Christian states to the introduction of alien ele- 
ments in the population, that had not inherited the con- 
servative traditions of government which were the birth- 
right of the ruling families. Yet nothing is plainer to the 
student of political history than that some of the worst 
governments the world has ever seen were those of fami- 
lies that had for several generations held the reins of power. 
On the whole it may be accepted as an established truth 
that every aristocracy inherits an increasing number of so- 
cial and political traditions of a conservative type, the mass 
of which in the end becomes so great as to bar effectually 
every initiative toward progress. This not being the case 
in a democracy, talent more readily makes its way to the 
front and to a leading position in the direction of affairs. 
From the nature of the case this form oi government is 
everywhere more or less gradually superseding every other. 



218 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

Though the belief in heredity had been almost undis- 
puted from time immemorial, we have seen when and how 
it began to be called in question in the sphere of the state. 
In quite recent times attempts have been made to ascertain 
to about what extent this belief rests upon a scientific 
basis so far as it concerns individuals. Galton's "Hered- 
itary Genius" is generally regarded as the first systematic 
attempt to show that this widely accepted dogma rests on 
a basis of fact. But, with all due deference to its dis- 
tinguished author, it may be questioned whether he is 
strictly scientific, for he says, "I propose to show in this 
work that a man's natural abilities are derived by inherit- 
ance, under exactly the same limitations as are the forms 
and physical features of the whole organized world." As 
to the method, it may be said that science, strictly so called, 
does not seek to establish preconceived theories; it seeks 
only the truth. Moreover, if this dictum be true we may 
well ask. Where do the progressive forces of society come 
in ? If we merely transmit to posterity what we have our- 
selves inherited, civilization must always remain at the 
same level. This is an application of the law of the conser- 
vation of energy where it manifestly does not belong. Fou- 
illee seems to be nearer the truth in holding that heredity 
is merely a conservator, and that evolution must supply the 
motive power that is to carry each generation beyond its 
predecessor. Galton limits his remarks to a single cate- 
gory of prominent men, to-wit, the English judges between 
the years 1660 and 1885. In a subsequent part of the 
same volume he makes analogous investigations in the par- 
entage of noted men in all departments, and arrivs at sim- 
ilar results. On the first point it is a question whether the fa- 
voritism so often shown in English politics, as in that of all 
other nations, particularly in the earlier period under con- 



HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT. 219 

sideration, is not calculated to throw a good deal of doubt 
on the ability of many of those who obtained preferment 
by royal favor. Further, it cannot be denied that the epi- 
thets, illustrious, eminent and remarkable, are very vague; 
yet for more than half the men on his list the author has 
been unable to find any ancestors to whom any of these 
designations would apply. Besides, it is very natural, and 
has of late become much the fashion, to attach undue im- 
portance to what we may call the reflex influence of a 
great man. We are loth to believe that a high order of in- 
tellectual ability can appear unheralded. 

This removal of the cause a generation or two upward 
does not really help in the least to an explanation, but it 
seems to have satisfied many a seeker for a cause. The re- 
cent ^'Life of Goethe'' by Heinemann is a striking case in 
point. He undertakes to show how such a man as his 
hero came into the world just when he did; how he com- 
bines in character and disposition traitf^ inherited from 
his father and his mother; how much these in their turn 
had inherited from their parents; how Goethe was a sort 
of condensed encyclopaedia of his blood relations that pre- 
ceded him for several generations. He attempts further 
to set forth to what extent North and South Germany were 
united in this remarkable man ; why such a personality had 
to be born and brought up in a city having a particular 
political constitution and in what class of its citizens he 
must necessarily be born. This "Life" i-s a striking ex- 
ample of the psychological method applied to biography. 
That it breaks down utterly when employed in the case 
of scores of men is evident on a moment'F reflection. The 
thoughtful reader can hardly help asking himself why 
there has been but one Goethe when the conditions amid 
which he was born and brought up were hj no means 



220 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

unique. It is no disparagement of scientific methods to 
say that there are domains to which they can be applied in 
but a limited degree. 

Another striking case is that of the first Napoleon. 
Here it is next to impossible to find any antecedent cause 
for his exceptional genius. All his blood relations, both 
ascending and descending were thoroughly commonplace 
people. A recent review of his life by Professor Sloane 
says: "Capricious, unscrupulous, destitute of feeling he 
was ; but what could one expect of one almost destitute of 
religious training, thrown upon his resources at an early 
age by the death of a thriftless father, buifeted by fate, 
knowing almost every vicissitude of adverse fortune, and 
cast into the seething chaos of ideas and events of the Eevo- 
lution? His genius was titanic, but there was nothing 
mysterious about his character. It was the natural pro-: 
duct of his training.^' 

In Galton's later work, "English Men <)f Science,'' he 
continued his researches by addressing to 180 contemporary 
members of the Eoyal Society a large number of questions 
bearing on their nurture and training. This method gave 
inadequate results, for the reason that many of those to 
whom the inquiries were sent returned no answer at all; 
others answered them only in part or without sufficient 
clearness. Besides, the author himself admits that the list 
should have been extended to three hundred to have made 
it fairly complete. 

It is evident from the answers reported, as well as from 
much that has been written on this subject, that the term 
"Tieredity" is used in different senses. It surely does not 
follow that because a man has a liking for mechanics he 
inherits his taste and skill from a father or grandfather 
who was equally clever. A man may completely underes- 



HEREDITY AISID ENVIRONMENT. 221 

timate the influence of the milieu in which he was brought 
up. Physicians' sons are often physicians,^ yet heredity 
has probably in most cases nothing to do with the choice. 
We may inherit our occupation just as we inherit our re- 
ligion, but the law of heredity has, strictly speaking, little 
to do with either. Gray's "mute, inglorious Milton" is 
not a figment of the poet's imagination. Many a man has 
come into the world whose "lot forbade" his attaining the 
renown he might and would have attained in a different 
environment. There is ample evidence to prove that the 
English who emigrated to America were not inferior in 
mental capacity to those who remained behind. But the 
conditions that surrounded them in their new home com- 
pelled them to turn their attention toward material and 
away from intellectual^pursuits. It is highly probable that 
the Audubons, the Bartrams, the Eafinesques, to name only 
a few, would have attained greater distinction had they 
been born under more favorable circumstances. Other 
men of talent still more unfavorably placed were never 
heard of, while the Wests and Copleys found a more con- 
genial sphere abroad. It required more than two hun- 
dred years before the hardships incident to the opening up 
of a new country were sufficiently overcome to permit any 
portion of the people to give some attention to purely in- 
tellectual pursuits. During all this time the indispensable 
mental pabulum was drawn from the mother country, 
where the supply was abundant and easily brought into 
use by identity of language. That Americans were not 
inferior in talent to Englishmen is plainly evident from 
the fact that in those departments of political activity to 
which they turned their attention the new product was fully 
equal to the old. The tJnited States produced an array of 
talent in oratory, in statecraft, and in war that ranked 
high, the British people themselves being judges. 



222 



WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 



The importance of environment is also attested by the 
direction which the intellectual development of the South 
took as compared with the North. In the creation of what 
properly constitutes an American literature the former 
had virtually no part, but her statesmen were for a long 
time more than a match for those of the latter section. It 
may be questioned whether the traditions inherited from 
the mother country were as favorable for the creation of a 
literature in the northern parts of the Union as in the 
southern; the environment, however, turned the intellec- 
tual energies of the people wholly in another direction and 
completely absorbed their talents. With the suppression 
of the Rebellion, material interests again came to the fore- 
Few people were content to use, in the enjoyment of intel- 
lectual pursuits, the means they had already acquired. A 
veritable craze began to show itself among rich men to be- 
come richer, and among the well-to-do to become rich. 
While education has been vastly the gainer by this state 
of things, we may well ask, Where are the successors of 
Irving and Cooper and Bryant and Lowell and Whittier 
and Holmes? Yet our literary poverty is hardly greater 
than that of England or indeed of most of the European 
countries. Material interests predominate everywhere. 
Authors are more concerned to write what will sell well 
than what the world will "not willingly let die." 

De Candolle, in his "Histoire des Sciences et des Sa- 
vants depuis deux Siecles," recognizes the fact that re- 
searches in heredity have not been conducted according to 
rigidly scientific methods, and that its influence has not 
been clearly established. He holds that it would be bet- 
ter to select without any preconceived notions, and without 
regard to merit or capacity, as large a number of persons 
as possible whose distinctive characteristics were known. 



HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT, 223 

as well as those of their parents and, if possible, of their 
grandparents, in order to ascertain how far these character- 
istics have been transmitted or not transmitted from one 
generation to another. Here again the difficulty of obtain- 
ing strictly accurate data is very great, and one is especially 
liable to underestimate the influence of environment. The 
author's conclusions, briefly summarizeed, are that the in- 
heritance of mental and physical chracteristics is a law 
that suffers few exceptions ; that the interruption of hered- 
ity during one or several generations is rare, perhaps five 
or ten times in a hundred; that inheritance through the 
female line is less, distinctive than through the male, espe- 
cially in the domain of the intellect ; that it is difficult to as- 
certain whether characteristics acquired by education and 
social influences are transmitted ; and that the most marked 
characterostics of an individual are those that he receives 
from his two parents and other relatives. 

He next studies the Associate, Foreign and Correspond- 
ing members of the Eoyal Society of London, the Academy 
of Sciences of Berlin, and the Academy of Sciences of 
Paris. His list again testifies to the fallibility of human 
judgment, the strength of human prejudice, and the lim- 
itations of human knowledge. But twenty-two per cent, of 
the names are found in two of the lists, and but five in 
three. Both Franklin and Lavoisier occur in but one. 
Evidently the personal equation, or the political milieu, 
had had not a little to do with election to membership in 
these societies. De Candolle attached less importance to 
heredity than Galton. Wliile admitting that the number 
of persons connected with families producing men of merit 
is much greater than one would obtain from the mere cal- 
culus of probabilities, he does not think this to be neces- 



224 WI8D03I AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

sarily due to inlieritance in the strict sense of the term. 
He says: "From these facts and from biographical data 
known to me * * * I have not concluded that every- 
thing is due to heredity. It appears to have had little in- 
fluence except in the case of mathematical science. It 
would rather appear that the preponderating influence was 
produced by education, example, advice/' etc. In other 
words, ^^celebrity is less hereditary than a specialty." An- 
other question De Candolle sought to answer was, "From 
what classes of society have the associate members of the 
French Academy of Sciences sprung? He flnds that for- 
ty-one per cent, have had a rich or noble parentage; fifty- 
two per cent, came from the middle classes ; while but seven 
per cent, were born in the class of laborers, tillers of the 
soil, etc. For French savants as a body he finds the three 
classes to be represented by thirt3^-five, forty-two, and 
thirty-three per cent, respectively. His data, however, are 
too meager to make them of much value, embracing as 
they do only one hundred foreigners and sixty Frenchmen. 
There is the additional difficulty of comparing the social 
classes of different countries. The figures are valuable for 
the general tendency they indicate, but they can not be 
used as a basis for wide generalization. 

De Candolle attaches a good deal of importance to the 
religious environment, perhaps the most artificial of all. 
He observes that of the foreign associate members of the 
French Academy, but one in a population of six millions 
has been brought up in the Eoman Catholic faith, while in 
Protestant countries it required less than a million inhabit- 
ants to produce a member. An examination of the foreign 
members of the Eoyal Society of London discloses facts 
of the same nature. Nearly all belong to the Protestant 
portions of countries having a mixed population, or to dis- 



HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT. 225 

tinctively Protestant countries. Thus, Switzerland, which 
is only about three-fourths Protestant, furnished fourteen 
members, without a Catholic among them. The Catholic 
population of Great Britain and Ireland has no repre- 
sentative; nor has Austria; while the Catholic portions of 
Germany are represented by very few. 

In 1881 Dr. Paul Jacoby published a work in which he 
treated of the genesis of great men chiefly from the path- 
ological point of view. His object, like that of Dr. Max 
Nordau more recently, was to establish the degeneracy of 
every aristocracy, including that of men of talent. His 
conclusions are in the main in accord with a statement 
sometimes met with, that the greatest men never have 
equally great sons. As a basis for his calculations he takes 
the "Biographic Universelle," and selects therefrom the 
names of all the prominent men born between January 1, 
1700, and December 31, 1799, and dead before 1845. His 
list embraces 3,311 names. It is not epsy to see how a 
better list for the author^s purposes could be made. But 
it must be evident on a moment's reflection that its defects 
are grave. Wliat weight can be attached to the mere ap- 
pearance of a man's name in a biographical dictionary? 
It always means that its bearer was for a time in the public 
eye, but frequently nothing more. One can easily con- 
vince himself of this truth by a glance into any similar 
work. 

Another work that contains much interesting informa- 
tion in a brief compass, bearing upon heredity in its rela- 
tion to pauperism and crime, is E. L. Dugdale's "The 
Jukes." It is here shown that inheritance and environ- 
ment have an important reciprocal influence upon each 
other, and that the latter in many instances entirely neu- 
tralizes the former, while the converse does not often take 

15 



226 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

place. The following are a few of the author's tentative 
inductions. Pauperism is an indication of weakness, and 
is divisible into hereditary and induced. Hereditary pau- 
perism rests chiefly on disease, and tends to extinction. 
Pauperism in adult age indicates a hereditary tendency 
which may or may not be modified by the environment. 
Hereditary pauperism is more frequent in men than in 
women. Harlotry may become a hereditary characteristic, 
but is in most cases accompanied by an environment that 
runs parallel with it. Where chastity is inherited it is 
accompanied by an environment favorable to it. Where 
the heredity and the environment are in the direction of 
harlotry, if the environment be changed at a sufficiently 
early date, sexual habits may be amended. 

Further testimony to the important bearing environment 
has in neutralizing the influence of heredity is furnished 
by the experience of our government in its effects to civilize 
the Indian. It will not be denied that up to a certain 
point these efforts have been remarkably successful. The 
experiment has not, however, been in progress a sufficient 
length of time or on a sufficiently large scale to make a 
prediction as to its final outcome entirely safe. But pres- 
ent indications seem to warrant the conclusion that at no 
very distant day the Eed Man may attain to a civilization 
not much, if at all, inferior to that of the whites. 

Among recent writings on heredity those of Professor 
Cesare Lombroso, of Turin, have perhaps attracted the 
most attention. This has been owing moi-e to the agree- 
able style of the author and the oracular tone in which he 
writes than to the intrinsic merit of wha+ he says, though 
it will not be denied that he has published a good deal 
that is valuable. In his "Men of Genius" he undertakes 
to prove that genius is a form of neurosis, and is closely re- 



HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT. 227 

lated to mania, if it is not mania itself. While this theory 
is not new, it has never been treated so systematically and 
supported by so considerable an array of data. But here 
we are met at the outset with a serious difficulty. If one 
is permitted to choose his own subjects it is easy to make 
out a case. But who will tell us exactly what genius is? 
And who among the large number of great men that have 
passed across the world^s stage are to be ranked as geniuses, 
and who are merely men of talent? No doubt the genius 
differs from the normal man in several ways; yet no one 
would contend that mere abnormality constitutes genius. 
Many great men have exhibited signs of insanity ; but sup- 
pose that we could get together one hundred or one thou- 
sand of the world's most prominent characters and an 
equal number of ordinary men in any community. Does 
anybody believe that one set would exhibit a larger number 
of peculiar traits than the other? The evidence is all 
against an affirmative answer. It may be regarded as an 
established fact that there is no connection between intel- 
lect and character. Men of the most gigantic intellect 
have often shown the most painful weakness in the latter 
respect. But this is something quite different from mania. 
It needs but a moment's reflection to convince anyone that 
many persons who have an undisputed claim to the posses- 
sion of genius have shown a "level-headedness" that would 
do honor to the veriest plodder. No one denies that genius 
is sui generis. Thou hearest the sound thereof, but thou 
canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth. Yet 
it is wholly out of place to call it abnormal, even in a ma- 
jority of cases. A tree is not abnormal because it is higher 
than other trees far and near. Genius frequently embodies 
the normal in a high degree. The consciousness of power 
makes its possessor in most cases disregard or defy public 



228 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

opinion and aim at results by the shortest method. With 
it there is often connected an unusual sensitiveness and in- 
tensity of feeling. Yet we find those qualities in thou- 
sands of the most ordinary persons; but because they are 
unaccompanied by a high order of intellect they are not 
generally noticed. There may be and often is a lack of 
balance or proportion between the psychical powers of 
the least as well as the greatest minds. This may result 
in mania, though it is not more likely to do so in one class 
of cases than in the other. The reputed thin wall of parti- 
tion between genius and insanity is found to be less thin 
than has generally been supposed. Every unduly sensitive 
mental organization is ill-fitted to contend against the ob- 
stacles that most men have to encounter in this world ; but 
our insane asylums furnish abundant testimony to the 
fact that those who go down under the strain of life do 
not belong in a large measure to the highest order of intel- 
lects. It is a serious error to suppose, as has generally 
been done, that a fair measure of common sense is incom- 
patible with a large measure of ability. 

An assertion often met with is that men of genius are 
not as long-lived as the common order of men. An exam- 
ination of the biography of 854 Frenchmen of this class 
discloses the fact that only about four per cent, of them 
died before the age of forty, among which number a few 
perished on the scaffold. This rather effectually disposes 
of the contention of Lombroso that men of genius usually 
die before the age of forty. With regard to France there 
is some variation in age between the different epochs. 
From 1300 to 1800 the lowest mean lies between 1510 and 
1600, when it was rather less than sixty years, and highest 
between 1650 and 1700, when it was nearly seventy-six. 
Comparing this average with that of the entire population 



HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT. 229 

we find it largely in favor of the most prominent men of 
letters, as the average of human life in the seventeenth cen- 
tury — there are no earlier data — was about twenty-three 
years, while as late as 1776 it was but twenty-nine. In 
1835 it had risen to thirty-five years, while at present it is 
above forty. Or if we take the expectation of life as given 
in most insurance tables, we find that for a person aged 
twenty-five it is about twenty-nine years. If we add the 
two together we get fifty-four. It is plain from these fig- 
ures that the possession of great literary talents in posse, 
that is, by persons in childhood, or in esse, that is by the 
man of twenty-five years, is no premonition of an early 
death. 

By far the most ambitious attempt that has yet been 
made to investigate the causes that have produced remark- 
able men is a work by Alfred Odin, recently a professor in 
the University of Sofia, entitled "La Genese des Grands 
Hommes.'^ In the two octave volumes that embody his 
researches he not only endeavors to trace the influence of 
heredity, but he examines the whole environment amid 
which men grow up and the influences that bear upon their 
development, such as race, locality, religion, government, 
financial circumstances, education, etc. He has no pre- 
conceived hypothesis to prove, and his investigations are 
conducted according to the strictest scientific method. He 
confines his researches to comparatively modern times for 
the reason that dates previous to 1400 are often uncertain 
and data generally meager. Neither does he take into ac- 
count persons bom after 1830, because sufficient time has 
not elapsed to test the merit of their works. The judgment 
of contemporaries is frequently not that of posterity. As 
it was important to make the basis of his studies a litera- 
ture that has had as nearly as possible a uniform develop- 



230 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

ment between the dates named, Professor Odin finds none 
so well suited to his purpose as the French. After a care- 
ful study of its biography and bibliography he selects from 
the complete list before him 1,136 persons, whom he feels 
justified in designating as gens de lettres de talent. The 
elite of French literature, however, contains but 144 names, 
and those who belong to it he calls gens de lettres de genie. 
By gens de lettres are to be understood persons whose 
writings are of general interest, though he includes among 
these a few persons who have written little themselves, but 
who have, nevertheless, contributed greatly to the develop- 
ment of French letters. The list excludes great military 
captains, explorers, actors, investigators, princes, compos- 
ers, — in short all who have not made permanent contribu- 
tions to literature. By this method of inclusion and ex- 
clusion it becomes possible to grasp all the influences that 
bear on the genesis and nurture of French letters, so far 
as this is possible from the study of printed records. When 
we examine somewhat carefully the civilization of the five 
principal nations of modem Europe and make comparisons 
between them, we are soon struck with the unevenness of the 
growth of their literature. French, as before stated, is to 
a considerable extent an exception. At the close of the Mid- 
dle Ages the social conditions in southern and western 
Europe were not widely different. It is, therefore, not 
easy to see why there should be so marked an ebb and flood 
in the tide of literary productiveness within the next four 
or five hundred years. Evidently the doctrine of heredity, 
broadly stated, will not solve the mystery, for a period of 
decay would not follow a period of growth throughout 
an entire nation. 

If we divide the literary history of Europe, excepting 
France, beginning with 1400, into periods of fifty years. 



HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT. 231 

we find the primacy for the first to be with Italy ; neither 
Spain, Germany, nor England having produced a name of 
first-rate importance, except Chaucer, whom, strangely 
enough. Professor Odin has not in his list. During the 
next period Italy is still at the head, and furnishes more 
great names than the other three countries combined. In 
the third period Spain stands at the head. During the 
fourth, Spain and England keep abreast of each other, 
Italy having fallen behind, and Germany far behind. All 
through the seventeenth century England is in the lead, 
Italy in the first half furnishing but one name of prime 
importance, and Spain in the second half none at all. 
Even in France, where the production of literary men has 
been remarkably regular, there is some fluctuation. In 
the period extending from 1600 to 1650 the number of 
great writers was above the average, while in that between 
1735 and 1750 it was considerably below. From 1700 to 
1750 England and Germany furnish about an equal num- 
ber of names, Spain being lowest in the list. Between 
1750 and 1800 Germany stands first, England second, and 
Italy last. There seems little doubt that of the world's 
great literati born in the first half of the nineteenth cen- 
tury a much larger number used the English language than 
an)^ other language. 

A study of the genealogy of the literary men and women 
of an entire nation is beset with great difficulties. The 
first is that, for the earlier periods especially, biographies 
are seldom sufficiently full. Sometimes a remarkable man 
has had among his direct ancestors one or more persons of 
merit of whom little or nothing is known. Then, again the 
reflex influence of a distinguished man upon his ancestors 
obscures the vision of posterity and makes the real facts 
hard to ascertain. 



232 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

It is unquestionable that mental traits, like physical 
characteristics, are inherited. We often read the remark 
that the different members of the Bourbon family not only 
bore a more or less striking resemblance to each other, but 
neither learned anything nor forgot anything. This, how- 
ever, is quite different from predicating the inheritance of 
intellectual pre-eminence in general. It needs to be kept 
constantly in mind that all men fall heir to a good deal 
besides those qualities that are personal to their progeni- 
tors. This is what we have designated by the comprehen- 
sive term, environment, or milieu. A study of French sta- 
tistics, so far as they bear on this point, strikingly shows 
this fact. Of the cases investigated by Professor Odin, 
twenty-four per cent, of France's distinguished men and 
forty per cent, of its celebrated women were descended 
from the nobility; thirty and twenty-four per cent, re- 
spectively of both sexes were born of the office-holding 
class; twenty-three and sixteen per cent, sprang from 
parents who were engaged in the liberal professions ; while 
for the hurgeoisie the figures are twelve and ten per cent., 
and for laborers ten and eight per cent, respectively. 

A striking fact made prominent by these figures is the 
subordinate part played by systematic education. Until 
the present generation, the education of young women in 
France would now be considered very defective. At any 
rate, the advantages affo-rded them in this respect were 
much inferior to those provided for boys. Nevertheless, 
a comparatively large number of women have made a per- 
manent impression upon literature. This is true not only 
of France, but of some other European countries. Not 
merely genius, but even a high order of talent educates it- 
self. Just as all animals find in their habitat the things 
needed for their nourishment, selecting the nutritious and 



HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT. 233 

rejecting the baneful, so a great mind instinctively finds 
its mental pabulum in whatever circumstances it may be 
placed. The cases of Shakespeare and Burns will have at 
once occurred to the reader ; but there are many others. It 
is very doubtful whether a system of education that affords 
equal opportunities for both sexes will materially increase 
the proportion of the lower classes as contributors to a 
national literature. Such a system undoubtedly makes 
broader and solider the foundation of national prosperity, 
but it can do nothing for genuine talent. 

The importance of environment is further confirmed by 
the birthplace of noted French litterateurs. Out of 5,233 
such men, 1,229 were born in Paris, 2,664 in other large 
cities, 1,265 in other localities, and 93 in country-seats. 
Of women the proportion falling to cities is much larger, 
rising as high as eighty-four per cent, of the entire num- 
ber ; while about one-half were natives of the capital. The 
testimony of these figures bearing upon the predominating 
influence of what are called the "centers of civilization" is 
further corroborated by similar data taken from other 
countries. Of fifty-five eminent Italian literati^ twenty- 
three were born in large cities, and most of the remainder 
in small municipalities; though, strange to say, not one 
had Eome as his birthplace. Of the fifty Spaniards who 
are generally regarded as holding the highest rank in the 
literature of Spain, sixteen were born in Madrid, and a 
large proportion of the remainder in cities of the first rank, 
several of which contain universities. The coryphaei of 
German literature seem at first sight to make an excep- 
tion to the conclusions that naturally spring from the above- 
stated facts. The great writers are quite evenly distributed 
over what now constitutes the Empire and Switzerland. 
Three large cities are the birthplace of three great writers 



234 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

each; two, of two eacli; while the rest have produced but 
one each. This calculation embraces about thirty who 
stand confessedly at the head ; yet if we increase the num- 
ber the results are not widely different. Here again the 
importance of the environment is strikingly made promi- 
nent. During the last five centuries Germany has had a 
large number of capitals, many of which the reigning mon- 
arch tried with more or less success to make centers of art 
and literature. 

It is also shown by statistics that the occupation of the 
parents, especially of the father, has exercised an important 
influence on the career of the sons. The nobility, the of- 
fice-holding class, and the liberal professions in no coun- 
try of Europe form- so much as a tenth part of the popula- 
tion. Yet from this small minority seventy-eight per cent, 
of the primates of Italian and German literature, eighty 
per cent, of Spanish, and sixty-nine per cent, of English 
were descended. 

If we examine the nativity of French writers according 
to their geographical distribution, including as before the 
adjoining territory in which French is the native speech, 
we find that northern and eastern parts have been most pro- 
lific. Taking France by provinces, Ile-de-France leads the 
list, with 1,572 names out of a total of 5,617. Next in 
order comes Normandy, with 413 names. The adjacent 
districts of Picardy and Artois furnish 373. Provence 
gives us a register of 295 names; Lorraine, 240; Touraine, 
Anjou, and Maine, 207. All others fall below two hun- 
dred. Except in a general way it can not be known what 
relation these figures bear to the total population, as no 
census of France was taken until comparatively recent 
times. If we make an estimate on the present basis of in- 
habitants the relations of the districts will be somewhat 



EEREf)ITT AND ENVIRONMENT. 235 

changed. Ile-de-France will stand at the head, but the 
second place will be taken by French Switzerland, the third 
by Provence, and the fourth by Orleannais. Another in- 
teresting fact made plain by Professor Odin's figures is 
that, if .French territory as a whole had shown the same 
fecundity as Paris, there would have been nearly 54,000 
great writers instead of less than 6,000; or if the same re- 
gion had been as fertile as the other large cities there 
would have been 23,000. Or, again, if French produc- 
tivity had been regulated by the smaller places, there would 
have been but 1,523 ; that is, a trifle more than one-fourth 
of the actual number. That literature in France is not 
only essentially an artificial product is thus made perfectly 
plain, but the same general fact is true, in perhaps even 
a larger degree, of Spain and Italy. 

Yet this is not all. Not every" great city has given birth 
to an equal number of writers of merit in proportion to 
its population. Lyons, for example, is the birthplace of 
a comparatively small number of distinguished authors; 
Geneva, on the other hand, of an unusually large number. 
The same statement appears to be true of Liverpool as com- 
pared with several much smaller cities in England. This 
difference in productivity is in all probability due to the 
fact that the interests of commerce and trade have largely 
absorbed the energies of the citizens; an inference that is 
supported by a similar condition of affairs in other parts 
of the world. The religious environment has, therefore, 
not always a preponderating influence. On the other hand, 
when all other conditions are virtually alike, and the 
creeds professed by the people imlike, we are safe in at- 
tributing difference in production largely to this cause. 
It is well known that among French writers in all depart- 
ments, Geneva has produced a much larger proportion than 



236 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

would be expected from the number of its inhabitantSo 
For more than four centuries it has been a Protestant city, 
while the rest of French territory has for the most part 
been Eoman Catholic. It is worthy of remark, too, that 
in Germany, including by this designation its territory 
linguistically and not politically, the Catholic portions of 
Bavaria and Austria have given birth to a relatively small 
number of persons who are entitled to the highest rank in 
letters. We have already seen that in the production of 
men of science the religion of a country seems to play an 
important part. We are justified in drawing the same in- 
ference in regard to literature. That French Catholicism 
has had a weaker conservative influence than any other 
in Europe will be plain to those who examine its character. 

From the data already cited and from other data that 
might be given it is evident that European literature is in 
but a limited sense a national product. It is almost en- 
tirely an artificial creation, in which the bulk of the popu- 
lation has taken no part and had no interest. It was born 
and brought to maturity in the salons of the nobles and 
in the houses of the rich or well-to-do. It is essentially 
the outgrowth of civilization, and of a civilization that 
bears the impress of the ruling class. When now and then 
a person of exceptional psychical powers has been born in 
the lower stratum of society, it has early become the chief 
object of his ambition to identify himself socially with 
those who stand at the top. He did not therefore modify 
materially the environment in which his first years were 
passed. 

May we not infer from these studies that social progress 
is to a large extent dependent upon human volition? 
While it can rarely be said of an individual that he has his 
destiny in his own hands, it may be said of the larger ag- 



HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT. 237 

gregates of men, as they are bound together in states, that 
they themselves are chiefly responsible for their own wel- 
fare. For every country in which there is an enlightened 
public opinion we may safely predict continual social 
amelioration. This movement is in small danger of seri- 
ous interruption except from extraterritorial interference. 
Even the literature of a country is largely called into ex- 
istence by a public opinion which its promoters do the most 
to create and shape. 



Note. — In this connection I take pleasure in calling attention 
to a little volume by Dr. A. E. Winship, entitled Jukes-Edward: 
A Study in Education and Heredity. The publishers are Robert 
L. Myers & Co. 



NATIONAL EDUCxlTION. 

Eeaders of the current literature dealing more or less 
with educational topics are familiar with the phrases "in- 
stitutional education/' "state education/' "national edu- 
cation/' "popular education/' and others of like import. 
It seems to be generally assumed that these terms are self- 
explanatory and that they afford little scope for diversity 
of opinion. Is this assumption well founded ? and is 
there not a wide diversity of views, not only between differ- 
ent countries but among equally competent persons in the 
same community? Education in some form represents a 
universal human interest ; everybody who thinks at all has 
given it some attention. It is one of the most vitally im- 
portant, if not the most important, interest with which all 
civilized peoples are concerned. This being admittedly 
the case, it ought not to be specially difficult for those who 
have studied the subject to come to some substantial agree- 
ment as to what it should include in its widest scope. Yet 
it can hardly be doubted that comparatively few persons 
have formulated in their own minds what a system of pub- 
lic education based on philosophical principles ought to 
embrace, and there is hardly more than a formal agreement, 
speaking by and large, as to what should be aimed at in 
a system fostered by government. It is safe to assert 

(238) 



NATIONAL EDUCATION. 239 

that there would be no dissenting voice to the acceptance 
of the doctrine advocated by Godwin in his Political Jus- 
tice that education should mean "the adoption of every 
principle of morality and truth into the practice of the 
community." It is only when the how of this adoption 
is discussed that we find the wide diversity of views now 
prevalent. 

It is easy to frame an ideal system of training for the 
young and it has often been done. The difficulty lies 
in bringing about the acceptance of a workable system. 
Anent many things to be taught in school there is not and 
can not be much divergence of opinion. There are not 
several kinds of mathematics, or of physicS;, or of biology. 
If these subjects are taught at all and so far as they are 
taught they are substantially alike. 

The controversy, or at least the discussion, is about those 
subjects that are in their nature intangible, but which are, 
nevertheless, tangible and practical in their results. All 
education is based on the assumption that many if not 
most of the ills that afflict the human race are preventable 
by human means. 

Few persons will dispute the dictum of Matthew Arnold 
that conduct is three-fourths of life, and those to whom 
this claim seems too large will admit that conduct is at 
least an important part of life. Now if the primary object 
of all education is to influence conduct for the better ; if it 
is to impress upon the young the importance of keeping 
in check their selfish desires and cultivating their altruis- 
tic impulses; if it is to lead them to see that only such 
knowledge is wisely used that is used for the good of others, 
how shall these ends be best attained ? Is the current edu- 
cation of our day in the United States and abroad contrib- 
uting materially to these ends ? or at best, is it contribut- 



240 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

ing as much as it should? No man who has eyes that 
see can fail to have observed that there is a great chasm 
between our education and the life into which the gradu- 
ates from every kind of school are ushered. The great 
majority of our graduates from High School, College and 
University are idealists. Whether they have been particu- 
larly good students or not, the very fact that they have re- 
mained as long as they have in an atmosphere that at its 
worst does a great deal to encourage the pursuit of knowl- 
edge for its own sake, while many of their companions are 
engaged in "making money," testifies to this fact. The 
education imparted in our schools is and can not but be 
largely derived from books, at least in so far as it is in- 
tended to influence conduct. It embodies the best thought 
of the wisest men that have lived in the past. 

Our young people read the speeches of Chatham, of 
Burke, of Webster ; they study the writings of Washington, 
of Lincoln, and of many others who have deserved well of 
their country, to say nothing of poetry. Their histories 
teach them that the French Eevolution was a vindication 
of the rights of man, and that the course of past events 
furnishes indubitable evidence of the moral order of the 
world in the case of nations as well as of individuals. 
Avarice, greed of power, disregard of Justice, inhumanity 
and other vices have always met their fitting reward. 

But what is the mental state of nine-tenths of these young 
people after five years of contact with the great world, 
with the hurly-burly of practical life? Their ideals have 
been laid in the grave from which there is no resurrection. 
They read no solid books; they keep up no systematic 
study of any branch of knowledge; they have no interest 
in a scholarly atmosphere, even when such an atmosphere 
can be found: In short, five years after graduation finds 



NATIONAL EDUCATION. 241 

nine-tenths of our young people on a decidedly lower in- 
tellectual and moral plane than any day of their under- 
graduate course. They still have a sort of vague faith in 
the moral order of the world, but they fail to see, or at least 
to apprehend clearly, that in the small concerns of life, in 
the career of each individual these vices are just as hideous, 
just as subversive of social order, and if not restrained, 
just as sure to bring their punishment sooner or later, as in 
the case of those who manage the affairs of states. In the 
ethical domain there is not one law for the usurper, one 
for the elected representative of a free people and one for 
the private citizen. 

We profess to believe firmly in what we call the higher 
education ; that this profession is in the case of most per- 
sons genuine is proved by the princely sums that have been 
given for the endowment of private institutions and the lib- 
eral grants made by many of our State legislatures. Has 
this liberality had any appreciable effect in purifying our 
political atmosphere ? Has it made our legislators of what- 
ever name or grade more disinterestedly patriotic or less 
venal? Has it made any considerable portion of our citi- 
zens willing to serve the commonwealth or the community 
without a consideration in hand or in prospect? He who 
will answer these questions in the affirmative is either fatu- 
ously optimistic or strangely blind 

Let us hear what a writer in a recent number of the 
Westminster Review has to say on this matter. That he 
tells the truth no one who has the opportunity to study 
the conditions will deny. What the final outcome or even 
the effect in the not very distant future will be it is im- 
possible to foretell. After speaking of the penchant for 
the false, the puerile and the decadent, he continues : "If 
the chimera of the golden-winged dragon is a dangerous 

16 



242 WISDOM Al^D WILL IN EDUCATION. 

symbol in the Old World, the danger is no less great in 
the New, where certain wealthy people are possessed by 
the idea that the word imperial contains a magic power to 
accomplish the impossible, to compel Europe to a sense of 
reverence and awe, to change the institutions, ideas and 
aspirations of a natural and noble democracy into the sor- 
did and fantastic ambitions of a few society leaders whose 
chief aim in life is how to surpass the fetes of sybaritic 
potentates, and equal the grim and empty pomps of their 
apparent triumphs/' "There is in America an element 
of snobbery so keenly ambitious, so callously domineering, 
that nothing wholly escapes its withering influence. 
Under the guise of national interests it makes its presence 
felt at the Capitol and in Church councils, as well as in 
commercial centers whose leading minds are secretly actu- 
ated by a spirit of display, social rivalry and a desire to 
connect themselves with the European aristocracy." "While 
Europe is imitating and adopting many of the best cus- 
toms and inventions of the Great Eepublic, a large class 
in America are imitating all that is decadent in the life 
of Europeans. New York is now so intimately connected 
with London that the social elements in these two cities 
have become practically one. But there is this diJfference; 
while the aristocracy in the old country is being gradually 
levelled down to a democratic standard, the wealthy classes 
in the new world are copying the very things which caused 
degeneracy in the European noble, for there is nothing so 
blind as snobbery. The all-important question among 
certain people is how to throw off the aegis of republican- 
ism and democracy." 

"Three things have caused this premature old age : rapid 
and continued increase of wealth, the American's love of 
travel, and a hasty, superficial culture. Long-continued 



NATIONAL EDUCATION. 243 

prosperity has created a love of luxury unparalleled in the 
history of the world; rapid and easy traveling, a taste for 
foreign things ; cheap schools, colleges and literature a be- 
lief that the highest culture consists in hearing and seeing. 
Americans have lived so fast that only an insignificant few 
have had time to read and digest the work of the great 
thinkers and writers like Emerson, Lowell and Whitman/*' 
In confirmation of the last statement it may be added that 
the book trade shows a steady falling ojff during the last 
twenty years in the works of such authors as Emerson, 
Holmes, Lowell and Hawthorne. One of Emerson's books 
is sold to-day where ten were sold twenty years ago. 

I have called attention to this unfortunate condition of 
affairs in the United States because, I hold that in 
spite of our increased facilities for education, we are on 
the whole more degenerate than other civilized nations. 
It ma}^ well be doubted. However, if, as Mazzini said, a 
nation has a right to exist only because it helps men to 
work together for the good of humanity, what is being done 
at present to fulfill these conditions or carry out this policy ? 

For centuries Germany has been regarded as the classic 
land of ideas and ideals. Its pre-eminence in this respect 
has been frequently affirmed by foreigners and is freely 
admitted by the Germans themselves. Nowhere else have 
teachers been so self-sacrificing or have pondered educa- 
tional problems so deeply or have accomplished such re- 
markable results of a certain kind as the Germans during 
a century or more. Five years of the Bismarckian regime 
changed all this. One aspiration, one dream had become 
a reality. But at what a sacrifice! Nowhere do we find 
brute force, the law of the stronger extolled and excused 
as in Germany. Almost every historian and publicist of 
prominence has become a grovelling hero-worshiper. What- 



244 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

ever the strong man does, whether right or wrong intrin- 
sically, is approved, or at least palliated. Some of the 
leaders of public opinion tell us that public and private 
morality differ widely and are sometimes irreconcilable. 
Deceit, falsehood and double-dealing are to be uncondition- 
ally condemned between man and man, but not necessarily 
between the representatives of nations. The law of love 
should be the ruling motive betv/een individuals, but the 
law of brute force must sometimes be resorted to by na- 
tions for their self-preservation. The assumption, I suppose, 
is that a nation which can not preserve itself by fair means 
or foul is not worthy to exist. This state of public opinion 
is all the more inconsistent because in Germany the ra- 
pacity, unscrupulousness and brutality of two or three 
French monarchs, but especially of the First Napoleon, 
have long been the theme of universal execration. In this 
reversal of public opinion, this apotheosis of the man who 
brings things to pass, we see almost an entire nation con- 
certed to the dangerous doctrine that the end justifies the 
means. If there is a country that has flung idealism to 
the winds it is the land of Lessing, Schiller and Goethe; 
of Froebel and Pestalozzi. 

I am not putting Bismarck on the same moral plane with 
Napoleon, yet they are at least alike in this respect : they 
accomplished their ends, partly by duplicity, partly by the 
sword. The goal of the idealists was, indeed, reached by 
the unification of Germany ; but are we compelled to admit 
that an ideal can only be realized when it prepares the way 
for the unscrupulous man of deeds ? 

The lengths to which hero-worship has gone in Ger- 
many is indicated by two other signs of the times. Under 
imperial pressure the educational system of Prussia has 
been greatly modified. Educational experts, whether wisely 



NATIONAL EDUCATION. 245 

or unwisely, were by a large majority opposed to the recent 
changes; nevertheless the Emperor had his way. Perhaps 
he discerned the spirit of the age more clearly than the ex- 
perts. The case is here referred to neither for approval 
nor condemnation, but merely as striking evidence of the 
impuissance of the educationist in a country where the one- 
man power is so pronounced. 

The second is what we may call the Nietzsche cult. Fried- 
rich Nietzsche, who died in 1900, after several years spent 
in a madhouse, proclaimed with burning eloquence the un- 
adulterated gospel of selfishness. In his writings he is 
never weary of pouring bitter scorn and sneering contempt 
on all the altruistic sentiments. With equal eloquence he 
advocates the cause of brute force, the total disregard of 
the claims of the weak and humble to the slightest consid- 
eration: In fact he does not admit that these have any 
claims whatever on the strong. This gospel of brutality 
is so utterly at variance with every principle of Christian 
and humane civilization that one can hardly suppress the 
emotion of amazement when he sees large numbers of pre- 
sumably intelligent people taking it as a real contribution 
to modern thought. A pack of ravenous wolves would be 
a peace society compared to a body of men trying to put 
such a creed into practice. Moreover it is interesting to 
note that according to competent evidence the originator 
of this tiger-creed was one Caspar Schmidt, who wrote 
under the pseudonym of Max Stirner, and who died in 
185 G Avithout attracting much attention.* When Niotzsche 
appeared on the scene the times were ripe for the doctrine. 
The disciple pleaded the master's cause with so much fer- 
vor and laborated his system with such care that men 



* Hermann Tuerck. Der Geniale Mensch. Berlin, 1901. 



246 WISDOM ziND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

began to take the author and his creed seriously, either to 
be combated or commended. 

To the educationist no less than to the student of the 
history of civilization no country presents so much that is 
of interest as England. Since about the middle of the six- 
teenth century its internal development and its outward 
expansion have been almost uninterrupted. The loss of the 
American colonies was no serious check. During these 
three and a half centuries it has been almost without a 
break the foremost power on the globe. This pre-eminence 
was won and has been maintained, partly by force, partly 
by that elastic science called diplomacy, but always by 
methods that were neither worse nor better than those uni- 
versally in vogue. While England invariably looked out 
for herself, often selfishly, often unscrupulously, her con- 
duct in this regard was no baser, generally not so base as 
that of her rivals. Her success as a colonizing power is 
abundant evidence that in the main she dealt fairly with 
her subjects abroad, no matter how gained. 

England was the only country that came out of the crisis 
of the Reformation stronger than she entered it. Notwith- 
standing the diversities of religious belief within her bor- 
ders all the creeds were overwhelmingly Protestant. Ca- 
tholicism did not have a sufficient hold upon her people to 
weaken her politically as was the case with more than one 
country of Continental Europe. During this period she 
produced an almost uninterrupted succession of great 
names in literature. In philosophy, her achievements were 
eclipsed only in the latter portion of this period by Ger- 
many, but the impulse came from England, or, more 
strictly speaking, from Scotland. In subju2"atin£r the 
forces of nature and employing them in the service of man 
England has led the world except duri^ng the last few 



NATIONAL EDUCATION. 247 

decades. The same statement may be made, in regard to 
her position in science, at least in its practical aspects. 
Her constitution has been a demonstration of the theories 
of the political philosophers of the Continent and was 
often held up by them as the model of what a government 
ought to be. Comparing the English with their nearest 
neighbors we may say that they "are far less fertile and in- 
genious in resources than Frenchmen, but far more likely 
to do the right thing. They are far less educated than the 
Germans, and yet they are more reasonable; far less log- 
ical, but saner; far less open to ideas, but infinitely more 
impervious to sophistry." These things being true, Eng- 
land might consistently be expected to have had a superior 
system of public education. So far from this being the 
case, she is still at the beginning of the twentieth century 
behind at least half a score of other countries of Europe. 
In England expert educational opinion counts for amaz-' 
ingly little. Here then we have the spectacle of a country 
that has had an almost uninterruptedly progressive devel- 
opment since the days of Magna Charta; that has passed 
through no crisis that has materially modified its form of 
government; that changed its religious faHh without seri- 
ous internecine strife; that has at times been ruled by as 
inefiScient monarchs as ever sat upon a throne ; yet with all 
these vicissitudes has suffered no detriment or check. Nev- 
ertheless, the general average of the intelligence of its peo- 
ple has been rather low, the proportion of its illiterates 
always large. While England has contributed much to the 
political instruction of the race it has added nothing to 
educational thought or experience. Surely here are con- 
ditions that border on the marvelous ! We might explain 
England's political supremacy as we explain that of Rome, 
as due to an instinct for government developed by special 



248 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

conditions; but the parallel breaks down before it is well 
started. I shall make jio attempt to explain it: I am 
only concerned with a lesson of history that seems to give 
the lie to modern theories of education which make the 
prosperity of a nation depend upon its genrxal intelligence, 
or upon its educational system. Contrast with England 
her great rival of former days and for a long time the lead- 
ing power of Continental Europe if not of the world. 
Spain is the most hopelessly unprogressive country of 
Europe, not even Turkey excepted. Is it her destiny or 
her fault ? All the nations of the world that have at differ- 
ent epochs acted a part in its history have exhibited certain 
traits and characteristics that were, as it seems, modified 
neither by time nor experience, — qualities that in some 
cases ultimately led to their destruction. Was this ob- 
stinate resistance due to stupidit}^, perversity or inexorable 
fate? 

In this connection the transition is easy and natural to 
Loyola. When discussing the merits and demerits of a na- 
tional system of education as contrasted with a schemie of 
instruction designed to be cosmopolitan we have, to some 
extent, the light of experience to guide us. The system of 
the Jesuits, which was ushered into the world almost full- 
fledged by its framer may not have been either rational or 
philosophical in the strict sense of the term, but that it 
was admirably contrived for universality and that it skill- 
fully avoided the disturbing forces growing out of differ- 
ences of nationality no one can deny. ]S''either will it be 
disputed that Jesuitism is the most potent educational 
agency ever devised, — the most consistent and the most 
minutely elaborate curriculum of instruction both in its 
conception and execution the world has yet seen. It is 
admitted that the Jesuits arrested the rising tide of the 



NATIONAL EDUCATION. 249 

Keformation and in several states of Europe restored the 
Catholic Church to its earlier status. That it finally lost 
ground was due to its lack of skill to adapt itself to the 
pros^ress of civilization and to its persistent meddling in 
affairs that had only the remotest connection with the in- 
struction of the young. An educational system formulated 
in the main when Europe had hardly emerged from the 
intellectual inertia of the Middle Ages, so skillfully articu- 
lated as to be able to maintain itself almost or quite to our 
own time, is one of the marvels of intellectual acumen. Its 
cosmopolitan character had much to do with its decline. 
It was native nowhere, exotic everywhere. That it will 
always remain an interesting study both for what it accom- 
plished as well as for what it attempted and failed to at- 
tain, no less than because it is the one system of education 
that is compact, consistent, elaborately conjoined in all its 
parts, shrewdly avoiding national differences or even the 
minor divergences in the church to which it professed al- 
legiance, never losing sight of its goal or allowing itself to 
be diverted from its main purpose, all will admit who know 
anything of its history. 

It is a truism that the rising generation is to be educated 
for the institutional life of adult years; or to express it 
differently, the young of both sexes are to learn those 
things which they will have use for when they are grown 
up. What are we to understand by institutional life ? and 
since the young can learn only a small purt of what they 
need later, how shall we select what is most important? 
Of late years there has been a constant pressure on our 
courses of study for the admission of more subjects, pa- 
trons evidently holding the belief that whatever the young 
are to learn at all they are to be taught at school. Yet 
every educationist knows that the more varied the informa- 



250 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

tion imparted to the learner the less he is educated. As 
to institutions, are we to keep in view those that now exist 
or those that may be developed in the course of time ? If 
they are to be modified, what is to be the determining fac- 
tor ? Study present conditions and see how opinions differ. 
In Germany^ as has already been shown, public education 
is shaped toward the maintenance of a rigorous autocracy, 
in spite of some pretty loud protests ; in France, toward the 
strengthening of republicanism, though not without oppo- 
sition. England is in a somewhat chaotic condition, as it 
has always been. In the different sections of our own 
country, and even in different portions of the same State, 
public opinion is moving in various directions. In the 
South the evident trend is toward the nullification or 
elimination of all influence on the part of the colored peo- 
ple. There, as well as in some portions of the North, the 
rights of the white man and of the black man are measured 
by totally different standards. Abstractly judged, such a 
state of affairs is more unjust than the old-time creed that 
the laborer's sons are to be brought up as laborers; the 
peasant's children to remain peasants, while the nobleman 
shall not be permitted to forfeit his nobility no matter 
what he does; because the rule always admitted of excep- 
tions. Again, in Germany religious instruction with a 
strongly dogmatic flavor is obligatory in all primary and 
secondary schools. To some extent the same statement ap- 
plies to England. On the other hand, in France all re- 
ligious instruction is rigorously barred from the schools. 
In the United States the conditions are mixed. What we 
call popular education is non-sectarian and non-religious; 
but a large proportion of the people, both Catholic and 
Protestant, are dissatisfied with the omission and are en- 
deavoring, in various ways, to supply the lack. 



NATIONAL EDUCATION. 251 

That denominationalism still has a strong hold upon the 
people of this country cannot be doubted. In fact it seems 
to be a characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon race. Again, a 
rational system of instruction, rational instruction of every 
kind must be based on truth, or at least on an honest quest 
for truth without regard to the consequences. Truth al- 
ways prevails in the end. The wise mf^n profits by his 
own mistakes and is careful not to repeat them, or if he has 
'the opportunity, he takes warning from the blunders of 
others. How is it with nations? Are they, generally 
speaking, willing to have the disagreeable truths of their 
past history put before the rising generation? We may 
answer, Never. For more than three centuries we have 
had Protestant histories and Catholic histories, neither 
party being willing to accept the others as the truth or ac- 
knowledge that its own side may have now and then been 
in the wrong. A school history that is acceptable to the 
Southern people does not meet with favor in the North. 
The men who sacrificed their lives on the battlefield are 
called heroes in one section, rebels in the other. We have 
been taught to believe that the men who brought about the 
separation of the Colonies from the mother country were 
all patriots, ready to sacrifice everything on the altar of 
their country. The facts tell a different story; but these 
facts are known only to a few special students of our his- 
tory. We are not a military nation; yet public opinion is 
wont to characterize as treason or something closely akin 
thereto any expression that appears to disparage our na- 
tional prowess by land or sea. Fouillee says, "There is 
nothing more unmeaning than historical facts, unless we 
make them mean something more doubtful still when we 
want to make them mean anything. Orators on each side 
of the house will draw their arguments from history. His- 



252 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

toTj, especially contemporary history, proves everything 
and nothing. Even the events of our own age are as yet 
only documents, the final value of which is uncertain. The 
history of jSTapoleon I., for example, is not yet written. 
Eead Lanfrey after Thiers, and Taine after Lanfrey and 
draw a conclusion if you can." 

Almost every year sees the appearance of a fresh Life 
of the Great Corsican that claims to throw some new light 
on his career and his character. Taine is one of the most ' 
popular of recent French writers; of his method Henry 
James truthfully says : "A thin soil of historical evidence 
is made to produce luxuriant flowers of dedi:ction." Some 
of the most widely read books professing to be histories are 
not histories in any proper sense of the term. To make 
history popular it must be more or less polemic, no matter 
what period is dealt with. Mitford and Grote constantly 
draw opposite conclusions from the same data, and inject 
the present into the interpretation of events that occurred 
more than two thousand years ago.* 

Few persons who have studied our war with Mexico will 
deny that it was a most unjustifiable war of aggression. 
On this subject, however, most of our school histories have 
not a little to say about the bravery of our soldiers and 



*The unwillingness of a people to be reminded of their national 
sins is strikingly exemplified by the conduct of the Athenians with 
reference to the dramatic representation of the Capture of Miletus 
by the Po€t Phrynicus. The whole theatre, Herodotus tells us. 
burst into tears, and the author was afterward heavily fined by 
the assembly for recalling to them their own misfortunes. A 
law was likewise passed that no one should ever again exhibit 
this piece. Tlie sting of the reminder lay in the crooked policy 
that it recalled. As if silence could condone a mean or a mis- 
taken act! 



NATIONAL EDUCATION. 253 

the brilliant strategy of our generals, while they are silent 
upon the merits of the controversy. 

A few years ago the so-called Dreyfus affair was a burn- 
ing question in France. Nine-tenths of our periodicals 
were on the side of the accused and vilipended l^e French 
people, and especially the courts of justice, for their sub- 
serviency to the military spirit. They professed to know 
all about the case, when from its very nature they could 
know very little. We are constantly meeting with similar 
disparaging judgments upon army-ridden Germany. 

Albeit, few of us seem to notice a similar condition of 
things at home. Without any reference to the merits of 
the case, the man who publicly criticises our army or im- 
pugns the motives of those who fought in any of the wars 
in which this country has been engaged is certain to be 
branded by many as disloyal. If some one ventures the as- 
sertion that many lawyers are dishonest, or that some min- 
isters of the Gospel are hypocrites, or that not all who 
teach are fit for their vocation, nobody takes exception. 
Such assertions are frequently made and accepted as mat- 
ters of course. But let some one affirm that many who en- 
tered our army did so from mercenary motives or from love 
of adventure ; and that not a few who belonged to it were 
cowards and skulkers, the affirmation is sure to be branded 
as a lie or as evidence of a bad heart. 

How much we are still dominated, as we have always 
been, by the military spirit is sho\\Ti by the fact that nearly 
all our Presidents had seen service in the field: some of 
them would never have been thought of in connection with 
this high office except for their military record. The Ger- 
mans have erected many statues to great soldiers and in 
commemoration of important battles: Is the proportion 
any less in this country, compared to the civilians thus 



254 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

honored? At present we are spending more money for 
wars past and to come than any government on the face of 
the earth. 

It is the nature of man to glorify brute force, to extol 
the exhibition of physical courage even in a prize-fight, 
and to ignore or make light of the display of moral cour- 
age, — ^that courage which silently opposes wrong from day 
to day and which is a thousand times more important to 
the welfare of the community than the sporadic and the 
spectacular. It constantly happens that more fortitude is 
required to refrain from doing than to do. 

When we reflect upon this universal tendency to laud and 
magnify violent measures we become painfully aware of 
the length of the way the world has still to travel before it 
shall have outgrown the centuries and aeons of inherited 
tendencies and reached the goal of a truly enlightened 
civilization. We are still sadly dominated by the instincts 
of the savage and the brute. If we do not ourselves fight 
we pray for and commend those who do. We still have the 
civilization of the boys who when they cannot settle a 
dispute by argument fall to blows in order to determine 
v/hich party is in the right and which in the wrong. 

How strangely inconsistent are the nations of the earth ! 
They all profess to believe that historical judgments are 
the applications of morality in the case of other nations: 
in their own case they do not wish to have the whole truth 
told to the rising generation lest it impair the vigor of 
their patriotism. As if patriotism and pugnacity were in- 
terchangeable terms! 

You may moralize as much as you ple?»,se, provided you 
do not approach too near the present in time and place. 

In a court of justice, when it is important to ascertain 
the character and reputation of a man, testimony from 



I 



2JATJ0NAL EDUCATION. 255 

friends or relatives and otherwise interested parties is rig- 
idly excluded. But in national history we reverse the pro- 
cess; we do not want to hear disagreeable truths that 
wholly disinterested parties might tell. Yet the world 
talks of adjusting its international disagreements by arbi- 
tration through disinterested parties ! We repeat trip- 
pingly from the tongue, 

"0 wad some pow'r the giftie gie us 
To see oursels as ithers see us ! 
It wad frae mony a blunder free us. 
And foolish notion.^^ 

But we rarely think of acting upon it. Except under com- 
pulsion the testimony of a foreigner or a stranger is ruled 
out in advance : as if truth and honesty, veracity and char- 
ity, courage and fidelity were not universal virtues ! As 
if anything could make the nations of the earth genuinely 
free except the truth! Before we reach the age of forty 
most of us have become impervious to new ideas ; our stock 
of wisdom is complete. Few persons are sincerely desirous 
to know the truth ; yet our schools are expected to teach the 
truth and the truth only ! 

What is it to be educated ? I can do no better, when at- 
tempting to answer the question, than to quote from an 
essay of the late E. E. Sill. "An educated man — what 
is it that we understand by the phrase? If it would not 
be easy to set down all that it connotes in our various 
minds, we should probably agree that it includes, among 
other things, such qualities as these: a certain largeness 
of view; an acquaintance with the intellectual life of the 
world ; the apprehension of principles ; the power and habit 
of independent thought; the freedom from personal pro- 



25G WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

vincialism and the recognition of the other point of view; 
an underlying nobleness of intention; the persistence in 
magnanimous aims." In the last analysis men's duties 
do not diif er widely from each other ; it is in the ability to 
perform them that the educated man has the advantage. 
But we must always remember that "if it were as easy to do 
as it is to know, then vrere all sinners virtuous," and here 
the educated, or at least those supposed to be educated, 
often fall short. Huxley has tersely stated the case. "We 
live in a world which is full of misery and ignorance, and 
the plain duty of each and all of us is to try to make the 
little corner we can influence somewhat less miserable and 
somewhat less ignorant than when we entered it. To do 
this effectually it is necessary to be fully possessed of only 
two beliefs: The first, that the order of nature is ascer- 
tainable by our faculties to an extent which is practically 
unlimited; the second, that our volition counts for some- 
thing as a condition of the course of events." 

Every one who has reflected on the true principles of 
teaching will admit that our age has discovered nothing 
new. What for a time may look like a novelty will upon 
larger information prove to have been thought of by some- 
body. It is always a question of the attitude of the mind 
toward knowledge. In the very nature of the case he who 
reflects will constantly find rising in his mind thoughts 
and suggestions that are the counterpart of what he finds 
in books, as his reading becomes more extensive. Think- 
ers in all ages and in every part of the world have pursued 
the same paths and in many instances reached the same des- 
tination. He who desires to know shall know, it matters 
little what his era or station in life. He who is indifferent, 
who does not seek to cultivate alertness of mind, who goes 
through the world with his eyes half closed and his mind 



NATIONAL EDUCATION. 257 

hermetically sealed against new ideas, w^^o has made up 
his mind in advance upon every question that comes before 
him, must always remain more or less ignorant. Little as 
men know, even the wisest of them, how few among them 
live up to the measure of their knowledge ! 

It ought not to enter the minds of any considerable pro- 
portion of a free people that they are tho victims of an 
inexorable destiny. This phrase may not be out of place in 
the mouth of a Roman historian who felt constrained to 
say of his countrymen that they could neither endure their 
ills nor their cure ; but it ought not to be necessary to use 
it of any people who have sufficient intelligence to compre- 
hend in any appreciable measure the lessons of their own 
past and those of the nations about them. But it is an al- 
most equally fatal delusion when a people so far forgets the 
vicissitudes of national growth and decay as to imagine its 
preponderance assured no matter what it may do. With 
the rapid intercourse now prevailing between different 
parts of the world it is easy for those who will to profit by 
the experiments and mistakes of others. What is the ad- 
vantage in having the power to think if it does not lead men 
to reflect upon the consequences of their acts whether done 
individually or collectively ? Even a brute does not repeat 
its own mistakes indefinitely: How much less does it be- 
come a human being to do so ! 

When we carefully consider the obstacles that have al- 
ways obstructed the formulation and adoption of a truly 
rational system of education in every county of the world, 
we must realize that the most enlightened nations are still 
a long way from it. Even demonstrable truth can not 
always obtain a hearing. It will not do any good w>iere 
there are no schools nor benefit those who are not in school. 

17 



258 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

Neither is it just to assume that all who teach are compe- 
tent and in their places because of merit. Everybody who 
cares to know is aware that such is not the case. It must 
be said to the credit of the business as well as to that of the 
professional world that it has little use for drones and in- 
competents. They are soon weeded out and thrown into 
a corner to eke out such an existence as they may. 

I repeat, there will always be some who learn nothing, but 
the number ought to be continually growing smaller until 
it becomes an insignificant minority. It is plain that there 
are many subjects in our school courses that can not be 
judiciously presented in such a way as to bring out promi- 
nently their full moral import. Often it is not wise to 
insist too strongly on facts, if they are calculated to give 
rise to controversy. Many a conscientious teacher has lost 
his place through lack of tact or disregard of possible conse- 
quences. But the progress of truth can not be permanently 
arrested. The supremacy, like Alexander's ring, will be- 
long to the most worthy. Even so short an experience as 
that of one generation proves this incontestably. Every 
country of Europe, with a possible exception or two, al- 
most all North America and much of the rest of the world 
is far better off than it was two or three score years ago. 
All this is due to the advance of science, to the enlighten- 
ment fostered in a greater or less degree by educational 
systems, unphilosophical as they still are. Progress has 
never been uniform ; nor has it been without relapses here 
and there. But we can say with Galilleo in the fullest con- 
fidence, E pur si muGve. What richer reward can we wish 
for ourselves than the honest conviction that we have con- 
tributed something, however little, to the movement, even 
though our acts have at times brought us unpopularity 
and unjust treatment ? Time will vindicate us. 



NATIONAL EDUCATION. 251) 

Readers of this paper as well as of some of those that 
have preceded it, will doubtless have made up their minds 
that like Easselas they have "reached a conclusion in which 
nothing is concluded." But let them remember that a 
greater than Dr. Johnston, that prince of philosophers, 
the son of Sophroniscus, was more concerned to stimulate 
thought and provoke inquiry than to answer questions. In 
the complex and changing life of modern states few prob- 
lems can be solved once for all; most of them are in a 
continual process of solution. Some of them have been 
settled a hundred times by a thousand different persons 
only to come up anew to vex their successors. Nothing 
is so much to be feared as stagnation ; and the most useless 
member of a community is the person who always knows 
just what to do and how to do it, but who does not furnish 
the motive that will constrain men to adopt his advice. So 
long as we honestly keep seeking to know and patiently 
keep trying to do, our labor will not be all or altogether in 
vain. 



THE RELATION OF PEIYATE TO PUBLIC 
MOEALITY. 

On the sixth of November, 1874, Dr. Gustavns Ruemelin 
delivered a lecture before the University of Tuebingen on 
the relation of private to public morality. It was called 
forth by the desire to justify the somewhat tortuous policy 
of Bismarck in bringing about the unification of Germany. 
As this lecture was included in a volume published the fol- 
lowing year, it is safe to assume that it embodies his mature 
views on this difficult question. Moreover, as Dr. Reumelin 
was the head of ecclesiastical and educational affairs in the 
kingdom of Wurtemberg and chancellor of the royal uni- 
versity, we are justified in holding that the case was pre- 
sented as strongly as it could be put from his point of view. 
It is therefore eminently fitting that his address should be 
discussed in a book of this kind.* 

He tells us that there is often a conflict between our 
duties as individuals and our duties as members of the body 
politic; that in the first relation the controlling motive 
should be the law of love; in the second, the law of self- 
preservation. But he lays down no rule by which we shall 
be enabled in all cases or even in most cases to distinguish 
between the two relations. We need not be surprised at this 



*It has recently (1901) been" translated into English under the 
title Politics and the Moral Law and is published by MacMillan & 
Co., New York and London. 

(260) 



THE RELATION OF PRIVATE TO PUBLIC MORALITY. 261 

apparent omission. We may be sure that it was not an 
oversight on the part of the distinguished lecturer, nor need 
we be surprised that he did not solve a problem that has 
engaged the attention of some of the ablest men that have 
ever lived, since they too have not been able to solve it. Four 
hundred years B. C. the wisest of the Greeks, a man who 
has exercised an abiding influence on the progress of 
thought, was condemned to death by his fellow-citizens for 
crimes of which he was not guilty. It was a clear case of 
injustice committed by the body of the citizens in their 
sovereign capacity against an individual. Yet the victim 
calmly submitted to his fate rather than resort to any of the 
means of escape that were proposed by his friends. His 
argument was, in substance, that he had all his life acknowl- 
edged the authority of the laws under which he was con- 
demned to die and that to thw^arfc them in any way in their 
operation would be committing a greater wrong than he 
was about to suffer ; that if his fellow countrymen were will- 
ing to incur the odium of putting an innocent man to death, 
it was their matter, not his ; and that it is always better to 
suffer wrong than to do wrong. The unanimous verdict of 
posterity is that he reasoned rightly. Yet this same man 
was the first great champion of the rights of the individual. 
He vigorously denied that men can make that right which 
is not intrinsically so. The burden of his philosophy is 
that underneath and behind all convention there are eter- 
nally valid principles that vary not with different people 
nor grow old with the lapse of time. And so for nearly two 
and a half millenniums the world has regarded Socrates as 
a martyr to his devotion to truth and consistency. 

The history of the Christian church records the names of 
many who shared the fate of the Greek philosopher, and for 
the same reason, viz : the conflict of individual opinion with 



262 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

political institutions. Thousands of good men and women 
have had brought home to them the question addressed to 
the rulers by Peter and John, "Whether it be right in the 
sight of God "^o hearken unto you rather than unto God, 
judge ye ; for we can not but speak the things which we saw 
and heard," — in other words we can not but follow the 
dictates of our own consciences. 

A distinguished Greek dramatist has treated the same 
conflict of duties in the tragedy of Antigone. The heroine 
finds herself in a position where she is compelled to choose 
between obedience to an absolute monarch who has her 
destiny wholly in his hands, and obedience to a higher law 
that long antedates human institutions. She unflinchingly 
takes her stand for what she conceives to be the right and 
expresses her willingness to bear the consequences of her 
disobedience to the edicts of a temporal sovereign. The 
poet plainly shows where his sympathies lie, and posterity 
remembers Antigone as one of the noblest characters handed 
down to us from ancient times. She suffered a painful 
but glorious death while the gods took terrible vengeance 
upon her slayer. 

In the last century when the agitation was going on in 
this country for a separation from Great Britain there was 
in some of the colonies a strong party that was opposed to 
such action. They were loyal subjects of the government 
under which they lived and they justly regarded the move- 
ment for separation as treasonable. Nor have we any right 
to question the motives or the sincerity of these so-called 
loyalists. But the stars in their courses were against them 
and the Declaration of Independence made them outlaws. 
Many of them lost their lives for the cause to which they 
adhered. I do not think there is any reason to question the 
motives of most of those who led in the movement for inde- 



THE RELATION OF PRIVATE TO PUBLIC MORALITY, 263 

pendence, but it would be a strange misapprehension of 
human nature to assume that all who called themselves 
patriots were men who unselfishly sought the welfare of 
their countr3^ In this conflict of duties face to face with 
which many people found themselves, some took one course, 
some another. Shall we say that because independence was 
achieved the separatists alone were right and their oppo- 
nents wrong, or shall we say that no question of right and 
wrong was involved but only one of expediency ? Or shall 
we say that in this cause it was impossible to determine a 
priori what was right and what was wrong; that the issue 
of the conflict alone could decide the question ? It is true 
such epithets as traitor, treason, rebel, and others of like 
import, do not necessarily belong in the vocabulary of 
morals. They are oftener mere political terms and have no 
ethical import whatever. The careful thinker is not misled 
by them, but in the mouth of the multitude they usually 
have a dire significance. 

Dr. Euemelin distinctly maintains that the state, that is, 
men organized into a government, may do things that would 
be clearly wrong for any individual or group of individuals. 
This position is as old as government, and I fear that in 
this case too we often speak of right and wrong where we 
really mean expediency. Let us not be misled by confound- 
ing right with rights. The two words are almost identical 
in form, but widely divergent in signification. There can 
not well be any question of the right of the government to 
take from me the rights it has conferred upon me. Pro- 
tection to life and property, a certain measure of liberty of 
action is guaranteed by all governments to their subjects. 
Here we are dealing with prescriptive and statutory, and 
not with inherent or natural rights. The history of slaver}/ 
is testimony to the fact that until comparatively recent 



264 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

times personal servitude was not regarded as being in con- 
travention of any natural right. On this point as on many 
others there is a manifest expansion of the ethical idea. It 
has drawn within the sphere of its influence a larger num- 
ber of social relations. I do not mean to say that there 
ever was a time in the history of the human race when it 
was entirely without moral sentiment. I hold that the 
term man postulates a being that for reasons other than per- 
sonal felt that there were some things to be done and others 
to be left undone. But the feeling of obligation and soli- 
darity was developed only to a limited extent as long as men 
had not reached a stage of society higher than the family 
and the tribe. On this stage many peoples have remained 
to the present day. The early history of mankind shows 
that the whole human race passed through this stage. He 
who did not belong to the tribe was regarded as an enemy, 
and some of the most bitter wars were intertribal. In the 
course of time, tribes were fused into larger aggregates and 
the feeling of nationality was engendered. The sentiment 
of kinship began to embrace larger social areas. 

By a continued extension of the process great nations 
were formed. In this way every man under the same gov- 
ernment and belonging to the same nation came to a realiza- 
tion of the fact that he owed something to his fellow-citizen 
though he lived far distant and quite beyond the range of 
personal acquaintance. In time, the more enlightened na- 
tions even began to feel that they could not be wholly in- 
different to the fate of any member of the human race. To 
this feeling is due the interest taken in England and 
America in the suffering Armenians, Cubans, and in the 
suppression of the slave trade in Africa. The humanitar- 
ian sentiment finally overflows geographical boundaries and 
brings the whole world within the scope of its activity. The 



THE RELATION OF PRIVATE TO PUBLIC MORALITY. 265 

most practical form of this altruism is seen in the labors of 
the missionary. It goes even beyond men and includes 
within its sphere the entire sentiment creation. This senti- 
ment has been fostered and greatly promoted by the growth 
and spread of intelligence by means of national and inter- 
national commerce. We can feel no interest in a people 
about whom we know nothing. It is true we may know 
and yet be indifferent; but the feeling of interest and sym- 
pathy must have something to feed on. If we do not know, 
we are sure to be indifferent. 

It is the custom of some people to disparage commerce 
as founded on mere self-interest ; and there is some truth in 
the charge. But self-interest is not necessarily selfishness. 
It may be wisely directed^, and generally gives as much as it 
takes, and very often more. With the increase of knowl- 
edge and the frequency of intercourse there is developed the 
clearer recognition of what is due from one man to another. 
Facility of commercial intercourse is fostered by commer- 
cial integrity. Business can not long be carried on except 
on well established business principles. Otherwise it is 
robbery. 

Without exception the nations of Europe are living on a 
higher moral plane than that of a hundred years ago, and 
on a considerably higher plane than that of two hundred 
years ago. I do not believe there is a nation in Europe to- 
day that would tolerate the low private moral standard that 
was almost universal in court circles of the last century. 
Speaking only of England, Thackeray says: ''ISlo wonder 
that Whitefield cried out in the wilderness, — that Wesley 
quitted the insulted temple to pray on the hillside. I look 
with reverence on these men at that time. MHiich is the 
sublimer spectacle, — ^the good John Wesley surrounded by 
his congregation at the pit^s mouth, or the Queen's chaplain 



266 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

mumbling through his morning office in the anteroom under 
the picture of the great Venus, with the door opening into 
the adjoining chamber where the Queen is dressing, talking 
scandal to Lord Ilervey, or uttering sneers at Lady Suffolk, 
who is kneeling with a basin at her mistress's feet ?" 

The history of the world is a gruesome tale. It is little 
else even for the times of peace than the record of intrigue 
of court against court; of courtier against courtier; of 
wickedness in high places and of the oppression of the 
lowly. Vice, crime, trickery, and immorality seem to have 
held high carnival from age to age. But let us not forget 
what our greatest poet says: "The evil that men do lives 
after them, The good is oft interred with their bones.'' If 
the ruling classes in general showed no sympathy for their 
subjects, these often displayed deeds of heroic self-sacrifice 
toward each other. God has never been without his wit- 
nesses ; nobility of soul without its representatives. Count- 
less acts of kindness have passed unnoticed except by the re- 
cipient and there has never been a total lack of those who 
felt that they were their brother's keeper. I freely acknowl- 
edge, for I can not disbelieve the evidence, that our politics 
is still sadly corrupt; in some parts of the country, fear- 
fully so. Yet I am convinced that on the whole it stands 
on a higher plane than ever before. If as yet not as much 
has been accomplished in the way of its reform, as good 
men have wished, the generally acknowledged necessity of 
reform is in itself a hopeful sign. We are at least alive to 
the dangers that threaten us. And before we can escape or 
avoid danger we must know what and where it is. 

Dr. Ruemelin distinctly says that the statesman individu- 
ally owes allegiance to the moral law, but not in his public 
character. In other words his politics need not be regulated 
by an ethical standard. This looks to me like a dangerous 



TEE RELATION OF PRIVATE TO PUBLIC MORALITY. 267 

doctrine. How shall we separate the man from his acts? 
Do not a man's habitual acts constitute his character ? Can 
a man in public office distinguish between his actions and 
say of the one, This I do in my representative capacity and 
this as a private individual ? In the one case I always tell 
the truth and keep my word; in the other, only when I 
think it expedient. We sometimes find men who are mor- 
ally weak exhibiting great strength as statesmen both 
creative and reformatory. A man's policy may be better 
than his life; just as a great writer may be a despicable 
character. But here we find the conditions reversed. Our 
author, at least by implication, tells us that a statesman 
may resort to fraud and falsehood, trickery and deception, 
in order to enchance the greatness of the nation for which he 
is acting, but he must not do these things in his private ca- 
pacity. I grant that a temporary advantage may be gained 
in this way, but I question its expediency in the long run. 
The citizen of a representative government often finds him- 
self in the unpleasant dilemma of having to choose between 
a candidate whose public policy he endorses and whose pri- 
vate character he detests. To which shall he give the pref- 
erence — to the man or to his views on public questions? 
There is hardly any doubt that in matters of grave import 
the policy is to be preferred rather than the man ; but there 
are many minor questions in which it is possible to show a 
preference for the reputable citizen, and in this way parties 
may be compelled to select worthier candidates. Unfortu- 
nately, too, the voter rarely has the privilege of registering 
his sentiments on all questions in which he is interested. 
So many issues are usually involved that he is compelled to 
strike an average, yet if he can not in all cases make choice 
of what he regards best he can at least enter his protest 
against the largest number of evils. 



268 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

What has been the practical effect of the policy that the 
ruler or the statesman is not subject to the moral law ? Al- 
ways and everywhere pernicious in the extreme. What is, 
or at least ought to be, the object for which all government 
exists ? To secure justice. On this point there is not likely 
to be any disagreement. It is hardly correct to say that 
governments were instituted to dispense justice among the 
governed ; it is nearer the truth to say that governments, or 
rather government, was developed by a gradual process be- 
cause men could exist in no other way. Wherever there 
is collective activity there must be organization, there must 
be government. Every man must have his assigned place 
and know the duties devolving upon him. Boys can't so 
much as play a game of ball without first coming to an 
agreement as to the rules that shall govern it, These rules 
are the laws of the game. Just so in the state. Its laws 
are the rules according to which men are required to regu- 
late their conduct in a political sense; they define within 
certain limits the relations that men sustain to their fellow 
men. There is no scientific frontier beyond which statute 
law can not pass. Hence in some countries many acts are 
illegal of which the law-making power in others takes no ac- 
count. With every enlightened legislator the supreme prob- 
lem is how to make such changes in the laws from time to 
time as will best secure the end for which all laws exist : the 
largest liberty of the individual with the highest good of the 
community and the state as a whole. 

Under a republican form of government laws are as a 
general thing an expression of public opinion. A certain 
line of policy is often followed by a community or a state 
before it has been formulated into a statute. Generally, 
however, leaders are necessary not only to formulate the 
wants of a clientele, but to see that these wants when put 



THE RELATION OP PRIVATE TO PUBLIC MORALITY. 26» 

* 

into the form of laws are observed by all who come under 
their-operation. Murder and theft are everywhere punished 
whether there be a statute to that effect or not. And so on 
through a long list of acts. 

It is true that an absolute ruler may enact laws and see 
that they are enforced that are in advance of public opinion, 
hut this sort of rulers has been rare in the histoiy of the 
world. If such rulers were always guided by the moral law 
which commands all men to do justly and to love mercy 
they would seek only the good of their subjects. Generally, 
however, they have sought mere personal aggrandizement 
at the expense of the governed. It was by following such 
a policy that Louis XIV inflicted imtold injury on France- 
It is the same policy persistently carried out for centuries 
that has brought Spain to its present unhappy condition. 
Turkey is wretchedly poor, Italy is little better off, and 
Spain is on the verge of ruin because those in authority, 
those best able to bear the burdens of government have per- 
sistently refused to do their duty and have compelled the 
poorer members of the body politic to support a policy with 
the formulating of which they had nothing to do. Auto- 
cratic rulers are more likely, as experience teaches, to be in 
the rear of public opinion than in advance of it. They 
usually find themselves more comfortable and more secure 
in maintaining the status quo than in yielding to proposed 
changes. For this reason republican governments are more 
progressive, except in rare cases, than monarchical. Even 
under the best monarchs, those who are ever ready to mi- 
tiate progressive measures, there is always danger of a stag- 
nation. The people become accustomed to look to their 
ruler for the initiative, and when this is not forthcoming, 
there is no force to take its place. 

No one will deny that the fundamental law of the state is 



270 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

self-preservation. But is it more imperative for the state 
than for the individual ? We have reached a stage of moral 
progress at least high enough to deem more praiseworthy 
the individual who perishes in the attempt to rescue a fellow 
man than him who saves himself at the sacrifice of every- 
body else. In fact no comparison can be made as 
to the moral quality of the two acts. To one is ac- 
corded only commendation, to the other only blame, if not 
execration. We are constantly reminded that the man who 
seeks to build up his private business at the expense of 
everybody else, soon finds that he has adopted an unwise 
policy. Nations too have tried the same thing again and 
again, always with disastrous results. It seems to me that 
if there be any difference the observance of the moral law 
is even more important in the government of states than 
in the conduct of the individual. A man may gain riches 
and power by dishonesty and oppression, but he cannot long 
retain or use it because of the brevity of human life. But 
the state is or is supposed to be perpetual and it is a serious 
matter for one generation to entail a curse upon another, by 
giving its energies a wrong trend or starting it on a career 
in which the rights of man are trampled under foot. I do 
not believe that anybody denies that there are such things 
as national sins, and when the time comes for the Lord of 
the Ages to say that they shall be expiated, those who are 
only negatively guilty by acquiescence, guilty through 
blindness, have to suffer as well as those who are directly 
concerned. This was the thought in the mind of Lincoln 
when he uttered the memorable words : "Fondly do we hope, 
fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may 
speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continues 
until all the wealth piled up by the bondsman's two hundred 
and fifty years of unrecognized toil shall be sunk, and until 



THE RELATION OF PRIVATE TO PUBLIC MORALITY. 271 

every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by 
another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand 
years ago, so still it must be said, ^The judgments of the 
Lord are true and righteous altogether.' " 

With what singleness of purpose, in what bitterness of 
soul, with what superhuman prescience the prophets of old, 
the national conscience of the Hebrew people warned their 
countrymen against national sins. But the people refused 
to hear. And how fearfully have they expiated their spirit- 
ual blindness ! Well may we stand in reverent awe before 
that God who holds the nations of the earth in the hollow of 
His hand; before that mysterious and yet not always in- 
scrutable power not ourselves, that makes for righteousness. 
It was under the inspiration of this sublime thought, under 
the shadow of this awful national responsibility that Kip- 
ling wrote his soul-inspiring Eecessional. And he is the 
poet who more than any other of our day holds with a strong 
and courageous grasp the contemporaneous motives that we 
are wont to call practical, even vulgar ; yet amid all the stir 
and strife of our busy age he warns us that we are in danger 
of forgetting what is most important of all, — our duty to 
one another and to the coming age. 

It is often a serious matter, sometimes an impossible one, 
to decide when the law of self-preservation is wisely ap- 
pealed to. I have elsewhere called attention to the miseries 
the Greek states entailed upon themselves by their cir- 
cumscribed patriotism. What were the citizens of the 
smaller German states to do who foresaw the unwisdom of 
their rulers in throwing themselves into the arms of Napo- 
leon? Were they to incur the risk of being punished as 
traitors for daring to point out the inevitable consequences 
of such a course? Were the genuine patriots among the 
Wurtemburgers and Bavarians, those who took sides for or 



272 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

against Napoleon? How was the law of self-preservation 
to be applied ? We have had similar difficulties to solve. A 
typical case is furnished by Gen. Eobert E. Lee. His pri- 
vate character was above reproach, yet he embraced a cause 
that time shows more and more plainly to have been counter 
to the moral order of the world. He believed that it was 
the duty of the patriot to go with his state, deeming his 
allegiance to her stronger than to the Union. He made a 
mistaken application of the law of self-preservation, within 
the narrow limits of a state, and he left behind him the 
melancholy example of a noble man who wasted his energies 
and misused his talents in a cause that was abhorrent to the 
moral sense of the world. 

The view held by almost all writers on government, until 
comparatively recent times, was that the powers that be have 
authority not' only to determine the rights of the subject but 
also what is right for the subject. Of course there have 
always been conflicts, especially when the individual con- 
science was infringed upon. In all cases of religious per- 
secution this doctrine was shifted from the domain of 
theory into the sphere of practice. But the theory was 
never given up and almost invariably the persecuted became 
persecutors in turn as soon as they had the power. The 
doctrine that governments derive their just powers from the 
consent of the governed, as a practical principle, is not older 
than our Declaration of Independence. Since its promul- 
gation there has been a constantly growing tendency to 
reconcile the rights of the individual conscience with the 
functions of the state. It is now generally held that it is the 
duty of those in authority to make the government so good, 
the laws so just that the subject will himself recognize the 
fact and yield willing obedience. The problem is by no means 
yet fully solved but the enlightened nations of the earth 



THE RELATION OF PRIVATE TO PUBLIC MORALITY. 273 

are devoting much thought to its solution, and I believe we 
are getting nearer the goal all, the time. It is customary 
to stigmatize as reprehensible at all times and under all cir- 
cumstances the Jesuitical doctrine that the end justifies the 
means, and that it is permissible to do evil that good may 
come. The mistake it seems to me lies^, so far as the first 
proposition is concerned in mistaking that for an end which 
is not. There is no end in organized society. There is al- 
ways something beyond that which we may mistake for an 
end. In reality there is no end, and what we are apt to con- 
sider such is but the means to something more remote. As 
to the second proposition, I do not believe that it is ever 
right to do wrong. But there is a constant growth and en- 
largement of the public as of the individual conscience. The 
child and the youth may perform acts with a clear con- 
science that maturer years will condemn. And so we find 
governments legalizing acts or conniving at them which in 
a more enlightened age it repudiates and condemns. Nor 
do I see any reason for believing that might ever makes 
right, but we often use the term right where it has no place 
and where rights is the proper word. It often happens, 
however, that there is might in right and those who are 
crushed by force imagine that they have been wronged. 

There is no doubt that public opinion has a good deal of 
influence on the development of the moral sentiments ; not 
a public opinion based on ignorance or sentiment or a pass- 
ing fancy, but on knowledge and enlightenment. He who 
is too high or too low to be influenced by it is commonly a 
dangerous or a despicable character. The one extreme is 
represented by the autocrat, the other by the tramp. The 
chief reason why the so-called 'floated bondholder" is hated 
or despised is because as the representative of a class, he 

18 



274 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

cares little for public opinion. Owing to his secure finan- 
cial position he is indifferent to public opinion. Unfor- 
tunate is the state of that individual whose mind can con- 
ceive or whose lips can utter the thought, "I don^t care 
what other people think of me.^' 

The world will never cease to admire the man who fear- 
lessly does his duty as he understands it. No matter how 
lowly his condition, no matter how circumscribed the sphere 
of his activity, if he enters upon a difficult task or faces a 
great danger because he feels that he ought to do so, the 
world will not withhold from him its admiration. 

"I slept and dreamed that life was Beauty ; 
I woke and found that life was Duty ; — 
Was that dream a shadowy lie ?" 

Assuredly neither one or the other ; but the thought that 
came to the poet in his waking hour was the sublimer of the 
two. When we consider how mach the welfare of the indi- 
vidual is bound up with the welfare of the state we can 
easily see how the larger duty often included the less and is 
in harmony with it. To make the harmony as nearly per- 
fect as possible is the first obligation of every enlightened 
government. 

Every community, and in a large measure every common- 
wealth contains a certain number of members who have no 
ideals. Their conception of duty is exceedingly circum- 
scribed and they can be kept from preying on society only 
by the fear or the force of the strong arm of the law. 
Neither is it wise under all circumstances to press too 
closely the theory that a good government derives its just 
powers from the consent of the governed. A good govern- 
ment can never receive the consent of all the governed. 



THE RELATION OF PRIVATE TO PUBLIC MORALITY. 275 

often not of a majority. The subject whose pernicious 
activit}^ is circumscribed by such a rule will stigmatize it as 
tyranny, yet if it is just in principle and justly administered 
it will in the course of events be its own best justification. 
But the rational man, the good citizen, does not need the 
restraint of the law. He is a law to himself both as to what 
he ought to do and as to what he ought not to do. Under 
a wise government there will not be and there certainly 
ought not to be a clash between our duty as citizens and our 
duty as individuals. This is the goal toward which all gov- 
ernments tend, — at least all enlightened governments. I 
believe it is a mistake to lay too much stress on those ex- 
amples of personal bravery that are now and then brought 
out conspicuously by the exigencies of war. The man wha 
has the courage to do his duty at the risk of his life would, 
often do it under any circumstances. The innate no- 
bility of such a nature has merely found a larger place in 
which to display itself. Sometimes the thought that he is 
in the public eye and that an act of heroism will win uni- 
versal applause may spur a man to a brave deed who would 
prove to be a coward in a less conspicuous position. It may 
require less bravery to die for a cause than to live for it. 
Experience proves that the spectacular hero is often morally 
a weaker character than the man who in an obscure place 
takes up his duty daily and discharges it to the best of his 
ability. " 'Tis not dying for one's country that is hard ; 
'tis living for it, Harry." If there is no patriotism except 
in facing shot and shell the lot of most young men now liv- 
ing is an unfortunate one. They might have had the best 
intention to do so, but there has been no opportunity for 
them to exhibit their physical courage on the field of battle. 
As wars become fewer there will be a constantly diminish- 
ing need of men whose chief recommendation is their fight- 



276 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

ing qualities. Nevertheless, those who would deserve well 
of their country have noue the fewer opportunities for serv- 
ing her efficiently, though it may not be in so conspicuous a 
way. And it is this sort of men which the world most 
needs. I repeat, there should be no conflict between public 
and private duties. In many cases they have nothing to do 
with each other ; in others they mutually support and 
strengthen one another. 

But what shall we say of a condition of things where a 
ruler conscientiously inflicts great damage upon his subjects 
and where the conscience of the subject is outraged by 
obedience to law ? Shall the latter acquiesce in what he be- 
lieves to be wrong? Is there a reconciliation between two 
diametrically opposite principles? There is not. The 
sovereign and the subject take their own risk in deciding 
what course they shall adopt. Philip II of Spain, thought 
he was doing God a service when he undertook to stamp out 
heresy in his domains ; but time has shown that his policy 
was a fearful mistake. The same mistake has often been 
repeated before and since. It is as plain as day that if men 
were wise there would at once be a universal disarmament. 

If you were to ask me what I think of the morality of 
party contests I should say that in many cases they do not 
come within the domain of morals at all. Of course faith 
should be kept in such matters as in any other, but as to the 
questions at issue they usually mean li-ttle more than a 
struggle for office. If men are willing to risk their money in 
such a game, they take the consequences. I do not know 
whether the venality of voters is greater now than ever be- 
fore, or corruption more common, though I am strongly in- 
clined to doubt it. If we are moving on a downward plane, 
it may be that nothing short of bitter experience will stop 
us. I do not believe that there is now or ever has been a 



JTHE RELATION OF PRIVATE TO PUBLIC MORALITY. 277 

government without some corruption. There have always 
been men, and there will always be, with whom the only 
motive that has any weight is a personal one. And of this 
class of men there is always a larger or smaller number in 
every legislative body. All governments are more or less 
of an experiment. In the history of the world but one hay 
lasted as long as eight or nine centuries without undergoing 
violent and radical changes. We have done fairly well for 
a little more than one century ; what our future shall be de- 
pends somewhat upon the form of our government, but far 
more depends upon the intelligence and genuine patriotism 
of our citizens. 

That the law of self-preservation should determine the 
conduct of the citizen as such is a doctrine that runs counter 
to the lesson of history. If it had prevailed it would have 
rendered impossible the unification of all the larger empires 
of modern times. It would cut up the map of the world 
into an almost countless number of little more or less inde- 
pendent sovereignties. Whether the law of self-preserva- 
tion is wise must be determined by other considerations, — 
not so much by what is right as by what is expedient and 
wise. Neither will the good citizen be ruled by such a shib- 
boleth as, "my country, whether right or wrong." He will 
scrutinize carefully what is meant by "country" in this 
sense. He will not be misled by a mere party cry to en- 
dorse a policy which his judgment disapproves. If there is 
such a thing as a national conscience it exists solely because 
the majority hold like views as to what is right and what is 
wrong. If the national conscience is perverted it is the 
duty of those who are most foresighted to set it right. If 
enlightenment does not clarify the motives of a people the 
less we have of it the better. No intelligent man will offer the 
lame excuse for doing what he holds to be wrong, that the 



278 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

majority wishes it. Individual judgment must always be 
the final arbiter in matters of conduct. Almost all moral 
reforms have in their inception been advanced by a minor- 
ity. How many men posterity honors who identified them- 
selves with a cause that was lost for the time being ! The 
doctrine that a man may do in his official capacity what his 
judgment condemns is a dangerous doctrine. It is espec- 
ially dangerous in a republic where so large a proportion 
of the citizens are called upon from time to time to hold 
public office. We shall probably always have among us a 
large number of persons who mistake the success of party 
for the welfare of the country. It is these who are peren- 
nially in favor of the flag and an appropriation. It is this 
class of men that Dr. Johnson had in mind when he defined 
patriotism as the last refuge of a scoundrel. When their 
private interests were menaced they cried out that the coun- 
try was in danger. Treason and criticism of the party in 
power are two widely different things, though they have 
often been confounded, sometimes ignorantly, sometimes 
purposely. 

Not only has it been the doctrine of those who directed 
the governments of the world that the great majority of the 
subjects never outgrow their tutelage, that they rarely dis- 
cern with any degree of clearness what is for their true in- 
terest, and that, therefore, certain more highly endowed or 
divinely commissioned persons must decide this question 
and guide them as to how it shall be attained, but nearly all 
writers upon government have maintained it in theory. Yet 
it is everywhere dead or dying. The Declaration of Inde- 
pendence was the first clear disavowal of the doctrine and 
it is probable that the Colonies did not themselves fully ap- 
prehend the weighty significance of the step they then took. 
The political development of most of the European states 



TEE RELATION OF PRIVATE TO PUBLIC MORALITY. 279 

during the present century has been along lines then mark- 
ed out. In other words, it has come to be a recognized 
principle of statecraft that in the main governments derive 
their just powers from the consent of the governed. In 
practice the theory can not be consistently carried out for it 
is impossible to secure unanimity on many of the problems 
that must be decided in order to make a viable government. 
Institutional life will always necessitate many compromises. 
But most governments no longer undertake to decide polit- 
ical questions without consulting the body of the citizens. 
They are putting more and more faith in the potency of 
reason and less in coercion. It is the essence of democracy 
that the minority, no matter how large, shall learn to sub- 
mit to the majority for the time being, no matter how dis- 
tasteful. It is because some of the Spanish- American states 
have not learned this lesson that they are in the chronic 
throes of revolution. 

If intelligent patriotism can be taught, — and who doubts 
it? — it must be done by enabling every citizen to express 
with the ballot, an intelligent opinion, on every question of 
public interest. The greatest good of the commonwealth is 
best secured by promoting the interest of the largest number 
of individuals. While the duty of the citizen and that of the 
private man are not always identical they ought not to con- 
flict. It is hard to see wherein the good citizen differs 
from the good man and vice versa. 

I give here the closing paragraph of the translation refer- 
red to on p. 260, for while some of the passages are intended 
to have a special application, they also embody general 
truths. "On the other hand, we can hardly fail to notice in 
the management of public affairs an increasing tendency to- 
ward nobler ends. In the eighteenth century politics consist^ 
ed mainly of cabinet intrigues, mutual espionage and plot- 



280 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION, 

ting, the corruption of valets and court ladies ; all these were 
important functions of a diplomat. To grab and traffic in 
territory, to quarrel about rank and power, seemed to be the 
content of diplomatic science; the only regard paid to the 
welfare of the people was in the choice of language and in 
the multiplication of meaningless phrases. It is one of the 
blessings of modern free institutions that the fate of na- 
tions is no longer discussed and decided exclusively in the 
cabinets and antechambers of princes, but in the public de- 
liberations of the representatives of the people. Plans that 
shun the light of publicity have become, not Indeed impos- 
sible, but decidedly more difficult of execution. Since two 
of the great civilized nations of Europe have passed from a 
condition of wretched dismemberment to that of national 
unity, the true and natural boundaries of the European 
family of nations have been found and established in their 
essential outlines. Universal military service renders wars 
impossible which are not recognized by the people them- 
selves as just and inevitable. Wars themselves are of 
shorter duration and more humane in conduct. The most 
recent progress in humane methods of warfare has emana- 
ted from the very state which not more than one hundred 
years ago caused its own soldiers to be thrown alive into a 
moat in order that the storming party might pass over their 
bodies as over a bridge. History has given to the German 
people, now powerful enough not to covet the property of 
its neighbors, and yet able to maintain its own possessions 
against all the world, the mission of founding an empire of 
peace in the center of the European continent — a state 
whose politics should seek simply to promote prosperity, 
liberty and civilization. We have been fortunate enough to 
behold and enjoy the fruition of a policy which need not 
shrink from comparison with the highest standards of his- 



THE RELATION OF PRIVATE TO PUBLIC MORALITY. 281 

tory. For the second time in the course of the century, 
out of the distress and confusion of the moment, there has 
arisen to us a man, — the embodiment of justice and power. 
But the fundamental basis of international ethics is the 
moral sense of the people themselves. If the German peo- 
ple shall maintain the preponderance of its love of ideals 
over the mere lust for gain and enjoyment, over indifference 
to the common welfare, and over narrow prejudice, — only 
in that case can the politics of the empire, henceforth based 
on universal suffrage, be administered in a similar spirit. 
The morality of a people and that of its statesmen go hand 
in hand. Only by accident will the standard of morality in 
the government of a free people be higher than that of the 
governed. And only in the ever continuous process of 
action and reaction between both may be found the ultimate 
solution of the problem discussed in this address." Most of 
this quotation has not only the true ring but likewise a re- 
markably home-like look. Evidently the upright citizen of 
an autocratic state regards his political relations very much 
in the same way that the citizen of a representative republic 
regards his. He may talk less and work in a more circum- 
scribed sphere of political activity, but he does not therefore 
necessarily think less. It may be too that when he opens 
his mouth or takes up his pen, he gives expression to ideas 
that are more to the purpose than most people do where 
words are so cheap. The cure for political corruption as 
well as for a mistaken public policy is to be effected by en- 
lightenment, not by intelligence alone. The progress of en- 
lightenment is rapidly bringing about a condition of affairs 
when there will no longer be a wide chasm between the 
morality of the individual and what, for want of a better 
designation, we call the morality of the state. When 
Charles the First, was debating with himself the question 



282 WISDOM AND WILL IN EDUCATION. 

whether he should keep or break the promise he had made 
to Wentworth (Strafford) to save him from his enemies, 
the bishops succeeded in making him believe that he had 
a public and a private conscience, as he was both a king and 
a man. The}^ assured him that his pledge to his unfortu- 
nate minister was given in his private capacity, but that in 
signing his death-warrant he was doing so as king. We 
hardly know whether to denounce most vigorously the 
abominable casuistry of bishop or politician, for both were 
united in the same persons ; but we may be quite sure that 
no man or group of men would in our day resort to such a 
contemptible subterfuge. Unfortunately, it can not be 
denied that we see a good deal of similar conduct in a small 
way. 

To the progress of enlightenment the teaching profession 
has it in its power to make the largest contribution. Every 
teacher worthy of the name is more or less of a reformer. 
It is not only his prerogative, but his duty to be so. If his 
influence is not uplifting, if he does not contribute some- 
thing toward making all forms of meanness a little more 
unpopular, if he is content to drift with the current of 
popular favor, or if he makes it a part of his business to 
find the lines of least resistance, he has sadly missed his 
calling. On the other hand he needs to be on his guard 
against taking a mere idiosyncrasy, a mere personal whim 
or opinion for a principle. Those who differ with him may 
be just as upright and just as patriotic as he. "My way" 
is not necessarily the best way or the only way that leads 
to the goal. I do not believe that the wise man seeks mar- 
tyrdom, but if martyrdom finds him in the performance of 
his duty he must not shrink from it. There are times and 
occasions when he must take a stand, cost what it may. 
Temporary detrimeiit to mind or body or estate is not too 



THE RELATION OF PRIVATE TO PUBLIC MORALITY. 283 

high a price to pay for the truth and the right. In the 
end he will not only lose nothing but assuredly gain much. 
It would be a grand consummation if such an esprit de 
corps could be engendered among teachers as to make the 
public fully aware that none of them could be induced to 
take the place of one who had been dismissed for any cause 
except proved inefficiency or immorality. It is safe to assume 
that such a condition of things is nearer than the time when 
employers shall have ceased to seek places for the in- 
competent, except in their own business. The poor and the 
inefficient we shall always have with us and so we shall al- 
ways have the problem of providing for those who are un- 
able to provide for themselves. 



The End. 



R. L. Myers & Company's 




R. L MYERS & CO., PUBLISHERS 

COR. FRONT ANB MARKET STREETS, HARRISBUEO, PA. 



K. L. MYERS & CO.'S 



SCHOOL ALGEBRAS 

By Fi^ETCHER DuREi^iy, A.M., Ph.D., and 
Edward R. Robbins, A.B. 

Mathematical Masters, the Lawrenceville School, Lawrenceville, N. J. 

These books are remarkable, both for the originality in the 
development of the subject and for the wonderful skill in pre- 
paring, adapting, and grading a large number of examples and 
review exercises. While seeking to develop the theory of the 
subject in a manner entirely new in school algebras of to-day, 
the authors keep in close touch with the best current practices 
of teachers in other respects. 

A GRAMMAB SCHOOL ALGEBHA. 258-fxxix 

pages. Half leather. 80 cents. 
This volume closes with the subject of Radicals. It is 
intended to contain only so much of the subject of Algebra as 
pupils in Grammar Schools are likely to study. 

A SCHOOL ALGEBRA. 336H-xxxviii pages. Half 
leather. $1.00. 
This volume covers the requirements of admission to the 
Classical Course of Colleges, as agreed upon at the conference 
between the representatives of leading Colleges and Prepara- 
tory Schools. 

A SCHOOL ALGEBRA COMPLETE. 416+xlvii pages. 
Half leather. $1.25. 
This book contains, in addition to the subjects usually 
treated in a School Algebra, the more advanced subjects required 
(1902) for admission to Universities and Scientific Schools, to 
wit: Permutations and Combinations, Undetermined Coeffi- 
cients, the Binominal Theorem, Continued Fractions, Loga- 
rithms, etc. This Algebra contains a chanter on the " Plistory 
of Elementary Algebra," the first of its kind published in 
America. 

Points of Superiority Peculiar to the Durell & Eobbins 
School Algebras 

1. The general theory, which makes evident to the pupil 
that new symbols and processes are introduced, not arbitrarily 
but for the sake of the economy or new power which is gained 
by their use. This treatment of Algebra is better adapted to 
the practical American spirit, and gives the study of the subject 
a larger educational value. 

2. Clear and simple presentation of first principles. Bright 
girls of ten years read the first chapter ; and with very little 
explanation on a few points of secondary importance, they 
understand the chapter clearly on first reading. 



SCHOOL ALGEBRAS 

3. Abundance of practice : (i) About 4,000 problems anct 
examples in the complete book — nearly 1,000 more than in any- 
other book of similar grade. Compare any chapter witn corres- 
ponding chapter in other leading books. (2) Every exercise 
well graded ; easy examples first ; hardest examples last ; work 
may_ be limited with any problem. (3) The problems are all 
sensible; no *' catch," unusual, or bizarre examples, which 
have no place in a text-book. 

The Durell & Robbins School Algebras are superior not only 
in the development of the theory and in the number and char- 
acter of the exercises — the main points to be considered in 
determining the strength of a text-bock on Algebra— but also 
in modern methods, new treatment of subjects, systematic 
grouping of kindred processes, early introduction of substitu- 
tion, emphasis placed upon verification of equations, concise 
definitions, clear and specific explanations, tactful omissions 
of a number of answers, " frequent reviews, superior typog- 
raphy. 

The success of these books is likely unprecedented. They 
have already secured for themselves, without any agency work 
except in Pennsylvania, adoptions in the foremost schools in 
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Maine, 
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, South Dakota, California, 
Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia, Tennessee, West Virginia and 
Maryland. 



Extracts from Letters by Superintendents, Principals, and Teachers 
of Schools in Which the Books Are Used 



W. F. SLAT0P3, City Superin- 
tendent, Atlanta, Ga. — The Durell 
& Robbins Grammar School 
Algebra is admirably suited to the 
advanced grades of grammar 
schools and to the lower grades of 
high schools. In my judgment, 
factorin-sf cannot be better taught 
than it is done in this book. 

THOMAS A. BLACKFORD, Com- 
maniant of Cadets^ Cheltenham 
Military Academy, Ogontz, Pa. — 
The authors of the Durell & Rob- 
bins School Algebra have certainly 
accomplished their purpose, to 
simplify principles and to make 
them attractive. I know of no 
book that I would stronger recom- 
mend for adoption. 

GEORGE GILBERT, Principal 
Chester Academy, Chester, Pa.—l 
am pleased with the book under 
the test of the school-room. It is 
certainly gotten up on the right 
plan. * * * it must be a favorite 
■with teachers. 



THE NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL 
OF EDUCATION, A. E. Winship, 
Editor, Boston.— The I,awrenceville 
School, Ivawrenceville, N. J., is one 
of the foremost secondary institu- 
tions in the country, and Messrs. 
Myers fi: Co. have made "a great 
hit," in the language of the hour, 
in securing the mathematical spe- 
cialists of that institution for the 
preparation of such a series of books 
as these prove to be. The books are 
attracting much attention. 

CHARLES F. HARPER, Princi- 
pal Public High School, New Brit- 
ain, Conn. — * * * A first-class 
binding ; excellent type ; carefully 
chosen, progressive graded prob- 
lems; clearly stated rules; easy 
explanations; and an abundance 
of varied examples, both for daily 
studies and reviews. 

SISTER M. FLARIA, Directress 
St. Peter^s Academy, Columbia, 
Pa. — It is the most complete work- 
in Algebra I have yet seen. 



7?. Z. OTTERS & CO.'S 



DR. M. R. ALEXANDER, Prin- 
cipal Chambersburg Academy, 
Chambersburg , Pa. — The Durell & 
Robbins School Alg-ebra is a most 
excellent work, both in design and 
execution. I am sure it will attain 
great success. 

F. P. WIATZ, Ph.D., Sc.D., Irv- 
ing Female College, Meckanics- 
burg. Pa. — Since the School Alge- 
bra has drawn heavily upon the 
excellent works on Algebra by Hall 
& Knight, the book is the more 
highly to be commended. Taken 
iill in all, there is no better School 
Algebra published than the one by 
Durell & Robbing. {Dr. Matz has 
for a number of years been editor 
of the Mathematical Department 
in the New Ungland Journal of 
Education.^ 

L W. HOFFMAN, Principal 
Warwick Institute, VVarwick, N, 
Y. — * * * Its equations, notes on 
special methods, and the number 
and variety of the problems g[ive 
the book an especially pleasing 
face, and will do much to awake 
and retain interest in a class of 
boys. The evident idea which 
the authors have kept before them- 
selves has been that of mastery. 

PROF. JOHN T. DUFFIELD, 

Princeton University. — I have had 
some occasion to examine the 
work, as it has been used by my 
grandson since he entered I^aw- 
renceville. It gives me pleasure to 
express my highest appreciation of 
its meiits. Its concise and accu- 
rate definitions, its tactful presen- 
tation of processes, its judicious 
selection and arrangement of 
examples and its avoidance of 
superfluous explanations, all show 
it to be the work of teachers of 
experience, of scholarship, and of 
good common sense. I congratu- 
late the authors on having ren- 
dered a valuable sennce to mathe- 
matical science, and one that will 
reflect honor on their institution 
and their Alma Mater. 

PROF. IRA B. PEAVY, Depart- 
ment of Mathematics, State Nor- 
3nal School, Edinboro, Pa. — After 
having tested the Durell & Robbins 
Complete School Algebra in all 
of our classes, for one year, it gives 
TTie pleasure to testify to its merits. 
The authors have done what so few 
are able to do — written a book that 
is eminently practical, scientific, 
attractiv i and strictly lip-to-date. 



PROF. nii.ARTIN BAHLER, Prin. 

cipal Orange Schools, Orange, 
New Jersey. — I am using the Durell 
Algebra in my classes and do not 
expect to use any other for a long 
time to come. It is superior to any 
other book of the kind that has 
come to my notice. 

W. IVJ. SWINGEL, Ph.D., Prin- 
cipal, Rahway, N. J. — The princi- 
pals are stated in a clear and for- 
cible manner, and the application 
is made in a way to be easily under- 
stood by the beginner. It is one of 
the best of elementary Algebras. 

D. G. ESCHBACH, B.S., Prin- 
cipal High School, Vineland, New 
Jersey. — I especially commend the 
clear and explicit statements in 
introducing new subjects and the 
progressive and accumulative 
arrangement of the problems. I 
have used the book m factoring 
with one class and in radicals with 
another, and have secured excel- 
lent results. I think you have 
made a hit, and predict a large sale 
for the book. 

DR. ROBERT J. ALEY, Professor 
of Mathematics, Indiana Univer- 
sity, Bloojnington, Indiana. — The 
Durell & Robbins School Algebra 
is remarkable for its clearness, and 
for the attractive form in which 
the various subjects are presented. 
For the student, it is certainly an 
interesting book, and for the 
teacher a suggestive one. Dr. 
Durell is also author of "A New 
I,ife in Education," one of the very 
best books on pedagogy of recent 
years. (In the Inland Educator, 
May, 1898). 

PROF.^RflARK MOFFETT, Super- 
intendent Schools, IVaveland, 
Indiana. — We are using the Durell 
& Robbins School Algebra in the 
first year of our high school with 
marked success. It contains an 
admirable selection of problems, 
serving pupils of that grade best 
of all books I have used, both in 
variety and number, while general 
principals and other jnatters have 
been discussed as fully as can be 
understood without the teacher's 
direction. The authors have had 
the rare good sense of stopping 
when enough discussion has been 
given. No unreasonable elabora- 
tions are to be found, which in 
some books often dishearten the 
pupil. 



SCHOOL ALGEBRAS 



PROF. H. R. HIGLEY, A.W., 

department of Mathematics, Slate 
Normal School, East Stroudsbtirg , 
Pa. — We have used the Durell & 
Robbins School Algebra Complete 
in our classes during the past year, 




Dr. Fletcher Durell. 



and expect to use it for years to 
come. The book is just what the 
practical teacher should have. 
Our pupils were never so well pre- 
pared as they have beeu since we 
use this book. 

THE EDUCATIONAL FORUM, 

The Auditorium, Chicago, Illi- 
nois. — The subject of Algebra has 
in this book (Durell & Robbins 
Gramm.ar School Algebra) been 
simplified, and the practical reason 
for each step is given in such a 
plain comrnou-sense way that alge- 
bra is made far more attractive 
than by any previous text-book. 
* * * This method is extremely 
practical, and adds materially to 
the interest of the pupil. 

WILLIAM J. BOONE, President, 
The College of Idaho, Caldwell, 
Idaho.— Tho^ Durell & Robbins 
School Algebra presents the subject 
in the liveliest, clearest and most 
forceful manner. I am acquainted 
with about two dozen texts on 
elementary Algebra ; but I con- 
sider Durell & Robbins the best. 



W. W. RUPERT, City Superin- 
tendent, Potistown, /'a.— The book 
is, indeed, an excellent one ; writ- 
ten, evidently, by men who are 
both mathematicians and first- 
class teachers. 

OR. 0. C. MURPHY, Superin- 
tendent Training Department, 
State Normal School, Slippery 
Rock, /*a.— We are using the Durell 
& Robbins Algebras in both the 
training department and the nor- 
mal department of this institution. 
These books are superior and are 
better than their publishers repre- 
sent them to be. 

SUPT. ISAAC FREEMAN HALL, 

City of North Adams, Massachu- 
setts.— Th^ Durell & Robbins Gram- 
mar School Algebra leads the pupil 
naturally, not arbitrarily, from the 
known to the unknown. It is 
planned to give power (dynamic 
rather than mechanical) to the 
student. It is superior in the selec- 
tion and grading of problems. 

DR. L. C. BOTH IN, President 
Board of Education, Burgetis- 
town, />«.— Permit me to add my 
feeble voice to the praises of these 
Algebras and to the protests against 
publishing a key to them. So long 
as I may be a member of any 
school board, I will vote against 
the use or adoption of any books 
whose publishers also publish a 
key. 




Prof. Edward R. robbins 



R. L. MYERS & CO.'S 

PRACTICAL ARITHMETICS 

By Fl^ETCHER DUREi,i<, Ph.D. 
Maihemaiical Master in the Lawrenceville School, and 

Edward R. Robbins, A.B. 

Mathematical Master in the JVtlliam Penn Charter School 

FIRST LESSONS IN NUMBERS. 88 pages. 25 cents. 
The development of numbers to 100, attractively illUvStrated. 

THE ELEMENTARY PRACTICAL ARITHMETIC. 

201 pages. Half leather. 40 cents. 
The first part is devoted to the development of numbers ; 
it is fully illustrated, and this part in itself is a valuable pri- 
mary arithmetic. The second part begins with the fundamental 
operations and closes with the subject of interest. It is an 
interesting treatment of the more useful topics of arithmetic. 

THE ADVANCED PRACTICAL ARITHMETIC. 

363 pages. Half leather. 65 cents. 

This volume covers the courses of the best American State 
Normal Schools, and meets the requirements for admission to 
the best American Colleges. It is also especially adapted to 
the more practical demands of the rural schools. Much obso- 
lete and valueless matter found in many text-books is omitted 
and increased attention given to arithmeticaJ analysis, cancel-^ 
iation, common fractions, decimal fractions, practical 
measurements, applications of percentage, applications of 
interest, mensuration, etc., etc It contains also a chapter 
on Arithmetical History, which is of great educational value 
and offers scholarly possibilities to the bright teacher. 

The same points of superiority that have distinguished the 
Durell and Robbins Algebras and won for these books the 
esteem and confidence of t achers and pupils are f ou nd in the 
Durell and Robbins Arithmetics, to wit: the original and 
scholarly development of the theory and the wonderful skill 
of the authors in preparing, adapting and grading a large num- 
ber of examples and review exercises. 

In developing the theory, the authors have shown more 
plainly than has been done heretofore the common-sense rea- 
son for every step or process. This treatment is better adapted 
to the practical American spirit and it also gives the study of 
Arithmetic a larger educational value. 

In making the problems and illustrative solutions, modem 
conditions and practices have been kept in view. The problems 
are consequently interesting and sensible, and the solutions 
are up-to-date. The exercises are well-graded and thorough. 

On every page of these books is stamped the class-room 
experience of scholarly, practical teacners. 



SCHOOL ARITHMETICS 



FRED. H. SOMERVILLE, Law- 
rencevilU. N. J. — The Durell and 
Robbing Advanced Practical Arith- 
metic is unique in that it combines 
clearness of explanation with a 
remarkably practical application 
of principles. The conciseness of 
the subject matter, the skillful 
gradation of the examples and the 
const tnt recurrence of carefully 
prepared review exercises give it a 
distinctive value not to be found in 
any text-book that has come to my 
notice. I find the book of special 
helpfulness to young students, 
since it serves to cultivate an 
interest not generally obtained. 

HOWARD SMITH, Instructor in 
Mathematics. The Lawrenceville 
School, Lawrenceville, N. J. — Much 
useless and obsolete matter found 
in so many other Arithmetics has 
been omitted by the authors of the 
Durell and Robbins Advanced 
Practical Arithmetic. The book is 
clear, concise, and comprehensive, 
and meets in every particular the 
demands of our public schools, 
normal schools and academies. 

MISS ALICE M. DUDLEY, Sen- 
ior Teacher of A rithmetic, William 
Penn Charter School, Philadelphia. 
— For giving students correct ideas 
of business problems done in a 
business-like way, I consider the 
Advanced Practical Arithmetic, by 
Durell and Robbins, the best I have 
ever used. 

MISS LUCY CHANDLER, Wil- 
liam Penn Charier School, Phila- 
delphia. — The Durell and Robbins 
Advanced Practical Arithmetic is 
excellent for grammar school 
pupils needing a thorough drill in 
work that has been taken in an 
elementary way. 

GEORGE E. WILBUR, Depart- 
ment of Higher Mathematics, State 
Normal School, Bloomsburg, Pa. — 
The Durell and Robbins Advanced 
Practical Arithmetic is, in every 
respect, a splendid work. I shall 
recommend it to our teacher of 
Arithmetic. 

JULEFF PARDEE, TVacA^y, Guy's 
Mills, Pa. — We are using the Durell 
and Robbins Arithmetics. I have 
taught thirty-two years, and con- 
sider these the best Arithmetics 
that I have ever used or examined. 
The authors present the different 
subjects so clearly that the average 
pupil makes rapid progress with- 
out much help from the teacher. 



R. G. MILLER, Principal, Eliza- 
beth, Pa. — I like it principally 
because it is, as its title indicates, 
"practical," and has omitted a 
number of useless subjects. 

F. E. DOWNES, Principal, Dick- 
inson Preparatory School, Carlisle, 
Pa. — We have been using the 
Durell and Robbins Arithmetic 
long enough to learn that it is just 
the book K)r a college preparatory 
school. In general arrangement 
and in the treatment of each sub- 
ject the book is thoroughly logical. 
The explanations are clear to the 
student ; the problems are well 
selected and practical. It is the 
most teachable book we have as 
yet been able to secure. It is giving 
entire satisfaction. 

M. J. MILLER, Principal, Con- 
neaut Lake, Pa. — We have used the 
Durell and Robbins Algebras for 
two years, and are now using the 
Arithmetics by the same authors. 
We find the books well adapted to 
practical scho 1 room needs and 
strictly up to date. 

M. S. ^^HTZt Principal, South 
Fork, Pa. — We are using the Durell 
and Robbins Arithmetics in our 
schools with excellent results. The 
presentation of the subject matter 
IS clear and concise, with plenty of 
problems of a practical nature to 
insure its comprehension. 

MISS MAUD FISHER, Teacher, 
Berne, Pa. — They are admirable 
books. I am pleased with the 
varied examples, and especially 
with the reviews after every new 
subject. 

MISS MARGARET B. CONLEY, 

Teacher, Shermansville, Pa. — We 
are very much pleased with the 
Durell and Robbins Arithmetics, 
and I also find the Algebra superior 
to any I have ever used. 

MISS LILIAN HAYES, Teacher, 
Elton, Pa. — We are using the 
Durell and Robbins Arithmetics, 
and I know of no books that I 
would recommend so strongly for 
adoption in public schools. 

WILLIAM P. TAYLOR, A.B., 
( Yale) Principal, Birmingham, 
Ala. — I like the Advanced Arith- 
metic for its attention given to fun- 
damentals and its omission of 
the useless " stuff" that has lit- 
tered most of our text-books on 
Arithmetic. 



R. L MYERS & CO.'S 



GRADED SPELLING BOOKS 

By Martin G. Benedict, Ph.D., 

Professor of Pedagogy, Pennsylvania State College, State College, Pa. 



BENEDICT'S PRIMABY SPELLER. 91 Pages. 
20 Cents. 



Cloth. 



BENEDICT'S ADVANCED SPELLER. 168 Pages. 
Cloth. 25 Cents. 

Well arranged spelling books will assist pupils to do at 
least three things: (i) To speak words correctly. (2) To write 
words correctly. (3) To use words correctly. To speak words 
correctly, one must know and be able to make the sounds of 
which words are composed. To write words correctly, one 
must know the elements of which they are composed, and the 
order in which these elements occur. To use words correctly, 
either in spoken or written language, one must know the 
ideas for which they stand. Benedict's spelling books are writ- 
ten to harmonize, to correlate, and to emphasize these points. 
A popular correlation of spelling to other studies is observed, 
not for the purpose of teaching reading, or language, or geog- 
raphy, but to emphasize spelling as relative to every other 
branch of study and to clothe it with a living reality. The 
proper study of these books will incite an interest in words 
and in word study that will abide after the spelHng book has 
been forgotten. 

OR. A. E. WIN SHIP, Editor N. 
E. Journal of Education, Boston, 
Mass. — Professor Benedict, of the 
State College of Pennsylvania, has 
had experience as principal of city 
schools, has been at the head of a 
normal school, and has had much 
experience in meeting teachei-s at 
institutes, and this book is the 
Tesalt of many years of thought up- 
on the subject of teaching spelling. 
This is an excellent book, words 
well selected and arranged, sounds 
correctly marked and grouped, and 
meanings clearly indicated in exer- 
cises intended for thought discrim- 
ination. It is a spelling book that 
trains in correct pronunciation 
and syllabication, as well as orthog- 
raphy. Synonyms and antonyms 
are abundant. Dr. Benedict evi- 
dently thinks that the correct spell- 
ing and pronunciation of a word 
often depends upon its grammat- 
ical use, for he teaches language 
incidentally. He gives most help- 
ful exercises in homonyms. 

Names of articles of commerce 



are well emphasized. Plurals are 
well handled. Proper names are 
duly prominent. Word building is 
a prominent feature. Cognate 
words and ideas are skillfully 
treated. Derived words are grouped 
advantageously. In every respect 
tki» is a valuable speller, good for 
every chili in the grammar school. 
No better book, to say the least, has 
been made for securing intelligent 
and correct use of the words of 
every day life. — (in the " N. E. 
Journal of Education, ^^ Jan. 26, 
1899. ) 

SyPT. L. 0. FOOSE, City 
Schools, Harrisburg, Pa. — * * « 
Both books contain much that is 
new, suggestive and helpful to both 
teacher and pupil, stress being laid 
upon the critical knowledge of the 
form of a word as well as on its 
meaning and use in a sentence. 
They contain about all the ordinary 
words that are in use in the lan- 
guage, an I if mastered ought 
to make good spellers beyond 
doubt. 



GRADED SPELLING BOOKS 



MISS ADA V. NORTON, Teacher 
of Orthographv and Commercial 
Course, State Normal School, Ship- 
pensburg. Pa. — We have used Bene- 
dict's Speller for more than two 
years with most grratif5'ing results. 
The arrangement of the work is 
logical. It incites interest in word 
work, and its correlation with other 
subjects makes it thoroughly inter- 
esting, hence easily taught." 

Supt. J. M. BERKEY, City 
Schools, Johnstown, Pa. — We are 
using Benedict's Primary Si)eller 
in our fourth and fifth grades and 
find it very satisfactory. It con- 
tains a well selected and carefully 
grade i list of words, which is the 
essential requisite in any spelling 
book. The author, moreover, has 
wisely left the teacher to suggest, 
and the pupil to work out the 
spelling exercises. It is not bur- 
dened, as too many of our spelling 
books are, with suggestions, hints, 
methods, rules, and language exer- 
cises. It is simply a good, all- 
round primary speller. I cheerfully 
endorse it. (Since the above was 
written the Advanced Speller has 
also been adopted.) 

F. J. STETTLER, Superinten- 
dent, Slaitngton, Pa. — Spelling was 
almost a " lost art " in the Slating- 
ton schools a few years ago. A 
change iu text-books as well as a 
change in the methods of te ^ching 
spelling was absolutely necessary. 
Our school authorities adopted and 
introduced Benedict's Spellers last 
September. Our teachers spenk in 
high prai-e of the merits of the 
books. Their results are excellent. 
The pupils of our middle grades 
have learned to know the diacritical 
marks and are able to use the dic- 
tionary intelligently. Spelling now 
has an upward tendency in our 
schools. 

NORMAN G. KESSER, Principal, 
Delaw ire Water Gap, Pa. — I have 
carefully examined Benedict's 
Spellers. They are unquestionably 
the best series on the market 
to-day. In scope and arrangement 
of matter, they are most practical 
and theoretically correct. The 
phonetic analysis, synonyms and 
auto lyras and the classification of 
words are among the strong and 
most meritorious features. They 
will prove a revelation in spelling. 
We shall immediately adopt them. 



MISS M. E. BURNHAN, S%ipcr- 
intendent, Sutton, Vt. — The Bene- 
dict vSpellers are the best I have yet 
examined and I am glad that I rec- 
ommended them for adoption. 

SUPT. ADDISON JONES, City 

Schools, JVesi Chester, Pa. — We are 
using Benedict's Primary Speller. 
The w rds are arranged so that 
they are easily learned without 
worrying the pupil. I have not 
seen a speller better suited to our 
use. 



m. L. HJIAIER, Ph.D., Presi- 
dent. Kee Mar College, Hagers- 
town, Md. — The Benedict Speller 
was adopted a year ago in our in- 
stitution. The selection of words 
and the classification of the text is 
far superior to any I have exam- 
ined. 

D. C. STUNKARD, Principal, 
Bedford, Pa. — Benedict's Spelling 
Books have been in use in the Bed- 
ford public schools since their 
first publication, three years ago, 
and we have secured better results 
frojn their use than we ever attain- 
ed by the use of any other books ; 
and we have reasons for expecting 
even better results when our course 
is thoroughly introduced and 
brought up to our expected stand- 
ard. 

RI9RS. WINIFRED SMITH RICE, 

Teacher of Liierattire, State Nor- 
mal School, East Stroudsburg, Pa. 
—Benedict's Advanced Speller has 
been used in this State Normal 
School since its publication, in 
1899, and we have found it to be the 
most up-to-date book on spelling 
published. It does all that is 
claimed for it in the preface, teach- 
ing, in the shortest time possible, 
three things : to speak or pro- 
nounce words correctly ; to write 
or spell words correctly ; to use 
words correctly. Without doubt, 
it is the best book that could be 
made for normal school purposes ; 
as the diacritical markings corres- 
pond, on the main, to the phronic 
met^iods employed in the best 
readino systems, thus teaching the 
student his reading methods inci- 
dentally with his spelling. The 
diacritical markings also give the 
student a foundation by which he 
may later help himself in the study 
of language. Its simplicity and 
progressive arrangement are also 
strong points in its favor. 



R. L. MYERS & CO:S 



HISTORY 

OUTLINES OP GENEBAL HISTORY 

/n the Form of Questions 

By J. R. FWCKINGKR, M.A. , 

Principal State Normal School, Lock Haven, Pa. 

Size, 7x8>^. 169 Pages. Ci^oth. Linen Paper. 
50 Cents 

Extracts from the author's preface : * ' All teachers of geU' 
eral history in the secondary schools of this country know 
that, owing to the lack of time, very unsatisfactory results are 
attained. Daily recitations, topical or otherwise, finally accu- 
mulate in the mind of the pupil such a mass that there can be 
no satisfactory assimilation. To obviate this defect, these 
questions were framed. ***** By this means, the 
constructive mental qualities of most students are exercised. 
Then, too, it is a well-known pedagogical fact, that most of us 
are of the motor type, and that it is necessary for us to construct 

that which we would master. 
• ' Without question, the 
best possible method of 
studying history is that of 
the seminary, by which orig- 
inal sources are examined, 
and both oral and written 
construction of the narrative 
is practiced. This method, 
however, can only be used 
in the university, and can- 
not be thought of in our 
secondary schools. There- 
fore, these questions have 
been framed in order that 
v/e might have a compromise 
method between the best 
and the poorest methods. 
The author believes that a 
great deal of the poor teach- 
ing done in this subject 
arises from a lack of time, as has been said, but that the gradual 
accumulation of a mass of matter assists in further deteriora- 
ting the work of the teacher for each term. Both teacher and 
pupil become discouraged, and they lose interest, and, hence, 
tenacity of purpose. By supplementing the narrative method 
with a series of suggestive questions, not only will the interest 
be maintained, but the student will be encouraged along the 
line of least resistance. ' ' 




Prof. J. R. Fuckinger. 



HISTORY 

PI.ASH-LIGHTS ON AMEBICAN HISTORY. 

By Dawsev Copk Murphy, Ph.D. 

Superintendent of Training Department, State Normal School, 
Slippery Rock, Pa. 

208 Pages. Illustrated. Bound in Cloth 
Price, 65 Cents 

This book is not the work of a professional author. Dr. 
Murphy is a careful student of history, and an able lecturer 
upon this subject. He was formerly a teacher of prominence 
in public schools; and for the past seven years he L.s been 
training teachers for every grade of public school woik. Flash- 
Lights ON American History is therefore the outgiowth 
of the school-room and the platform, and is a reader of real 
value to the schools. It will awaken a deeper interest in his- 
toric study, and create a greater fondness for beautiful selec- 
tions oi prose and poetry. Subjects are arranged chronologi- 
cally. The explanatory notes are helpful. The historical 
recreations excite renewed interest. All in all, it is one of the 
best of supplementary readers. Where it is not provided for 
class use, it should be on the teacher's desk and in the school 
library. 

SAMUEL Wkfli\\.TOn, Superintendent, Allegheny Co., Pa.— "Flash^ 
Lights on American History " is an admirable work. It is a connecting 
link between history and literature, adding new life and interest to both. 
It is especially well adapted to the wants of the public school as a supple- 
mentary reader. 

DR. M. G. BRUIV.BAUGH, University of Pennsylvania.— Murphy' b 
"Flash-Lights on American History" is an admirable book for the 
teacher, and is full of most helpful historical material, written in a fas- 
cinating manner. The author is to be congratulated upon producing so 
excellent a treatise. 

From AMERICAN SCHOOL AND COLLEGE JOURNAL, Si. Lovis, 
Mo. — The hope of the author of" Flash-Lights on Amei-ican History " ht.s 
already been realized. The children in the home wish to rea^ f uu t.) re- 
read every page of this most admirable and timely compilation. C .utr 
people, too, have read it and will read it again. ^ It is a book all alive witli 
stories, in prose and verse, of noble and daring deeds. A soul-stimng 
poem, or a patriotic address, based upon some heroic event such as v.e 
find here, sets the hearts of pupils aflame with interest. 

W. S. BRYAN, Principal, Carnegie, Pa. — We like your book. It 
creates a new interest in -he history classes. We count it our best supple- 
mentary reader. 

D. J. DR5SC0LL, Principal, St. Mary's, Pa.—l secured one of the 
first copies that came from the press. I am delighted with it. The pupils 
ask to take it home oftener than any other book in our library, and several 
of them have already read it through. 



R. L. MYERS & CO.'S 

THE PENNSYLVANIA SERIES 

, Bver since the union of the thirteen colonies, Pennsylvania 
has been known as the " Keystone." She is by nature and by 
achievements entitled to this distinction. There is no equal 
area on the face of the Globe to which the Creator has given so 
great a variety of blessings in soil, rivers and mountains. Three 
of the five richest agricultural counties in the country ere in 
Pennsylvania. Her mines of iron, "wells of oil, and pockets of 
gas are almost matchless, while she has the world's richest 
storehouses of anthracite and bituminous coals. Sixty-six of 
her sixtj^-seven counties are penetrated by great railway sys- 
tems; and the Ohio, the Susquehanna, the Schuylkill, the 
Delaware, the Lehigh, the Allegheny and the Monongahela 
form a combination of rivers unequaled by any other State. 

i All these blessings are at the mercy of the coming genera- 
tion. Never before was the need of civic patriotism so great. 
Civic clubs are demanding it ; churches are preaching it ; and 
the schools are urged to teach it. History is the foundation of 
true patriotism and real civic pride. Better than mines and 
forests, than water power and navigable rivers, than railways 
and shipyards, is the State's inheritance from William Penn, 
the statesman, philanthropist, educator and Christian ; from. 
Benjamin Franklin, Thaddeus Stevens, Robert Fulton, and 
other great leaders; from Independence Hall, Valley Forge, 
Gettysburg, and other hallowed spots made sacred by the suffer- 
ing, the bravery and the blood ot a patriotic ancestry. 

In view of the importance of Pennsylvania, it has been 
deemed advisable to publish a series of school books bearing 
upon the State and her institutions, and the first two books of 
the series are herewith announced. 

A HISTOBY OF PBNNSYLVAlSriA 
By Iv. S. Shimmki.1., Ph.D. 

Teacher of United Stales History and Civil Government, High School, 
Harrtsburg. Author of" The Pennsylvania Citizen" 

Pages 356. Fui^ly Ili^dstrated. Ci^oth. Price, 90 Cents 

In his simple, clear and accurate style, so well-known to 
all schoolmen in Pennsylvania, the author of this new book 
tells of the Indians and their dealings with our forefathers ; 

fives an account of the early settlements of the Dutch, the 
wedes, the Knglish, the Germans, the Welsh, the Scotch- 
Irish and the French Huguenots; describes the growth in popu- 
lation and the adjustment of territorial boundaries; explains 
the early forms of government ; records the administrations of 
the government during the colonial, the revolutionary, and the 
constitutional period; relates the industrial and educational 
history of the State ; and closes with a chapter of biographical 
sketches, that to any teacher is alone worth the price of the book. 



THE PENNSYLVANIA SERIES 



DR. D. J. WALLER, Principal, 
Slaie Normal School, Indiana, Pa. 
— Shimmeirs " Pennsylvania Citi- 
zen" merits the wide adoption 
given it, and his History is of even 
greater interest lor Pennsylvania 
because it is of as deep interest for 
women as for men. Dr. Shimmell 
is to be congratulated upon hav- 
ing produced a book that was 
needed, and upon having produced 
one so good that another will not 
soon be written for the same pur- 
pose. He has succeeded in com- 
pacting a large mass of facts into a 
haud-Dook and yet in writing his- 
tory. Every school in Pennsylva- 
nia ia which American history is 
taught should have copies of this 
book. It will win its way. 

DR. GEO. EDWARD * REED, 

President Dickinson College, 
Carlisle, Pa.— I have examined Dr. 
Iv. S. Shimmell's excellent work 
" A History of Pennsylvania " with 
considerable care, and am very 
much pleased with the simple 
and natural arrangement of the 
matter of the volume. The literary 
style of the author is very attrac- 
tive, and the whole arrangement 
of the book is such as to render 
it particularly well adapted for 
text-book purposes. It would be a 
most valuable book to introduce in 
the Public Schools of Pennsylvania. 

FROF. J. C. TAYLOR, Superin- 
ie7idenL, Lackawanna Counly, Pa. — 
Every teacher of history ia the 
State should have a copy, and every 
school should be supplied. I think 
of contributing a copy to each 
library ia this county. 

DR. J. R. FLlCKiNGER, P^in- 
cipal, Sla/e JVotmal School, Lock 
Haven, Pa. — I compliment the au- 
thor on the skill he has shown in 
the balancing of his data. He has 
done good pioneer work and h.is 
book should have the encourage- 
ment of Pennsylvania teachers. As 
soon es we can find a place for it 
we shallgiv^it atrial. It is very 
attractive iu appearance. 

PROF. A. WANNER, City Super- 
intendent, York, Pa. — Shimmel's 
History of Pennsylvania happily 
presents the leading facts in the 
history of our State. The graphic 
arrangement by which along paral- 
lel lines, the great closely related 
phases of development, separately 
treated, are presented, immensely 
adds to the interest and value of 
the book. 



THE TIMES, PiUsburcy, Pa., 
May 9, igoo. — There are few things 
that it is necessary to know about 
the story of the Keystone State 
that cannot be found in this vol- 
ume. It is illustrated by many 
engravings of historic buildings 
and places and with many por- 
traits. A valuable feature of the 
volume is a series of brief, well 
written biographies of men promi- 
nent ia the various activities of 
the Commonwealth, from the be- 
ginning to the present. 

PROF. H. RflJLTOM ROTH, 

Superintendent, Adams Cozmty, 
Pa. — I have thoroughly examined 
*' A History of Pennsylvania " and 
am much pleased with it. I am a 
firm advocaie of having State his- 
tory taught ia the public schools, 
and bespeak a prominent place for 
"A History of Pennsylvania" ia 
the schools of our Commonwealth. 
May it be as helpful to the student 
as the " Pennsylvania Citizen" has 
been. 

DR. J. D. MOFFAT, President 
IVashington and Jefferson College, 
IVashtngion, Pa. — It is certainly a 
practical book, embodying an im- 
mense amount of information in 
small space, and presented ia a 
simple, straight forward way that 
is both interesting and instructive. 

PROF. A. G. C. SMITH, Super- 
iutendent, Delaware County, Pa.— 
I am quite pleased with it and I am 
sure it will be found a useful book 
in both public and private schools. 
It is written in a pleasing .«-tyIe 
and contains much that evei-y 
Pennsylvanian should know. I 
bespeak for it the success the 
efforts of the author deserve. 

DR. G. M. PHILJfS, Principal, 
State Normal School, West Ches- 
ter, Pa. — I have looked through it 
with some care and with much 
interest. The work is net only 
well done, but, what is almost more 
important in a history, and espe- 
cially a local history, it is interest- 
ingly done. I congratulate both 
its author and its publisher upon it. 

HON. HENRV HOUCK, Deputy 
State Superintev den f , Harrisburg, 
Pa. — Pennsylvania has a history of 
which every one of its citizens has 
a right to feel proud, and this book 
tells the story veil. I have read 
many fctate school histories and I 
am glad to say that in my opinion 
this book ranks with the very best. 



J^. L. MYERS & CO.'S 



THE PENNSYLVANIA CITIZEN 

By I,. S. ShimmEli,, Ph.D. 

Teacher of U. S. History and Civil Government, High School, 
Harrisburg 

THE PENNSYLVANIA CITIZEN is a complete civil gov- 
ernment of Pennsylvania, and contains al o the essentials of 
the national government. It is used in a majority of the school 
districts of the State, including the following cities and 
boroughs: Allegheny, Altoona, Bethlehem, Braddock, Carbon- 
dale, Columbia, Corry, Danville, DuBois, Dunmore, Easton, 
Erie, Franklin, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Hazleton, Huntingdon, 
Jeannette, Lebanon, Lock Haven, McKees-ort, Mahanoy City, 
Meadville, Middletown, New Brighton, New Castle, Philadel- 
phia, Pittsburg, Pottstown. Shamokin, Shenandoah, South 
Bethlehem, Steeltou, Sunbury, Titusville, Tyrone, Uniontown, 
Wilkes-Barre and York. 

The recent law requiring teachers to be examined in civil 
government, including State and local government, is evidence 
that the book supplies a demand that is general all over the 
State. Although its sale is limited to Pennsylvania, yet the 
Pknnsyi,vania Citizen has reached its ioo,oooth volume. 



Comments on "Tke 

DR. EDWARD ESOOKS, City 
Siiperiniendent , Philadelphia. — 
"The Penusylvania Citizen" is 
well adapted to give that training 
in civic knowledge so essential to 
e^very citizen of our country. It 
will do a good work in the State in 
educating patriotic American citi- 
zens. 

DR. J. S. TAYLOR, Grammar 

School 86, New York Cily.—l wish 
there were a New York edition of 
" The Pennsylvania Citizen," and 
that it were on our list. I am 

usinsf , which is entirely too 

prolix, and does not come close 
enough home for school children. 
It is too abstract and attempts too 
much. I congratulate you on this 
book. The style is fluent and 
lucid, and your choice of the topics 
most happy. 

\^]llllkM LAUDER, General 

Manager Kemhle Iron Company, 
Riddlesburg, Pa.; also President 
jof Broad Top Township School 
Board. — Shimmell's "Pennsylvania 
Citizen " is one of the best books in 
that line I have seen, and it ought 
to be made a compulsory text-book 
in ail our schools. If the states- 
men were as active ps the W. C, T. 
U. they would sooa put it into use, 
and it would do more good than 
physiology. 



Pennsylvania Citizen " 

DR. LIN coin HULLEV, De- 
partment of History, Bucknell 
University. — " The Pennsylvania 
Citizen" IS an admirable book. I do 
not know of anything so suitable 
for schools in Pennsylvania as this 
book. I shall recommend it wher- 
ever I get a chance. The study of 
State government is as importantas 
that of the National, if not more so. 

MISS MARY B. ROCKWOOD, 

GirVs Latin School, Baltifnore, 
Md. — "The Pennsylvania Citizen" 
should certainly be immensely 
popular in Pennsylvania, for it has 
the same excellent qualities that 
we all appreciate in the " School 
Gazette." It is clear, it is simple, it 
is comprehensive, it is interesting, 
it is " up-to-date." 

DR. JOHN BALLEI^TINE, State 
Normal, Clarion, Pa. — I have care- 
fully read Shimmell's "Pennsyl- 
vania Citizen." The work is brief, 
but the facts are clearly and accu- 
rately stated. Chapter II contains 
information not usually found in 
short manuals. Chapter IX has 
valuable definitions. This is the 
third outline of the government of 
our State that has found its way 
into our school, and, according to 
my judgment, the best. It ought 
to be studied in every commtv^i 
school in Pennsylvania. 



IDEAL MUSrC COURSE 



WMAL MUSIC COURSE 

By J. A. SprENKEI. 
Supervisor of Music, Bethlehem, Pa. 

In the preparation of this conrse, two conditions have been 
carefully considered, (i) That vocal music in our public 
schools must, in the great majority of cases, be taught by the 
regular teachers. Special attention, therefore, is given to sug- 
gestive lessons and exercises in the theory of vocal music. 
(2) That the songs of the school room are treasured in the 
minds of the pupils, and are seldom forgotten. Good thoughts 
and sentiments are, therefore, fully as important as pleasing 
music. It has, consequently, been necessary to omit many 
so-called new songs, and to draw largely from standard poetry, 
suggestive of noble thoughts and fancies. 

PRIMARY IDEAL MUSIC BOOK. 96 Pages. Hai.f 
C1.0TH. 35 Cents. 
The rudimental department is simple and thorough. The 
music includes a wide range of subjects and styles. The songs 
are bright and pleasing. It is a standard primary work. 

ADVAlSrCED IDEAL MUSIC BOOK. 198 Pages. 
CiyOTH. 60 Cents. 

This is one of the best books for teaching purposes and 
chorus work ever published. It is divided into departments, 
and each department is as nearly perfect as it could well be 
made. Every piece of music is good ; every song will be sung 
and enjoyed. There is not a poor page in the book. 

This course is complete in itself, but "The Ideal Music 
Chart " has been provided for those who wish to use one. 



DR. F^ATHAN C. SHEAFFER, 

Superintendent of Public Instruc- 
tion, Pennsylvania. — It has been 
my pleasure at different institutes 
to listen to the talks of Prof. J. A. 
Sprenkel, and to hear him conduct 
the exercises in singing. He pos- 
sesses rare powers for holding the 
attention of an audience, and 
superior abilities as a leader of the 
singing in large gatherings. 

7R0F. A. L. L. SUHRiE, Prin- 
cipal Public Schools, St. Marys, 
Pa. — Prof. Ivion, my first assistant, 
is a musician, and he has taken 
charge of the music in our schools. 
He is much pleased with the tjpoks, 
and we have been able to secure 
excellent results thus far. 

DR. ARNOLD TOSyiPKIPiS, C;«"- 

cago University. — Prof. J. A. Spren- 
kel is not only an enthusiastic and 



an efficient teacher of music, but 
one whose bearing and character 
exert a wholesome influence on 
those about him. He is the author 
of music books of high merit. 

PROF. A. J. BESTZEL, County 
Superintendent, Cu mb er I a n d 
County, Pa. — The " Ideal Music 
Course" has been generally intro- 
duced into the schools of the 
several townships and boroughs 
in this county, and the books are 
giving the best of satisfaction. 
* * * The charge that music 
cannot be successfullj' taught with- 
out a special teacher falls to the 
ground in the face of the success 
achieved by our teachers and pupils 
during the present term, in sight 
reading, time, and part singing. 
Directors and patrons are highly 
pleased. Th.e course has my 
stroncjest endorsement. 



R. L. MYERS & CO,'S 



THE IDEAL MUSIC CHART 

By C. H. CoNGDON and 
O. E. McFadden 

Directors of Music, St. Paul and Minneapolis, respectively 

44 Pages, 32x44 
Price, Inci^uding Chart vSupporter, $7.50 

This chart is most excellent, musically, educationally, and 
typographically, and in every way will stand the test of intelli- 
gent criticism. The exercises are not merely samples of many 
difficulties in time and tune ; but they lead pupils naturally 
through (ine difficulty after another, by the use of many tune- 
ful, pleasing exercises and songs, so carefully graded that each 
succeeding exercise can be sung at sight. The proper use of 
it will develop the intervals of the scale and cultivate sight- 
singing ability. 

PROF. FRANK DAiySROSCH, of Ne-a} York City. — ^It gives me pleasure 
to tell you that your " Ideal Music Chart" is being used in my classes 
with much success, and that I find it of great assistance. I think it is one 
of the best charts for elementary instruction I know of. 

MISS SARAH L. ARNOLD, Supervisor of Primary Work, Boston 
Schools. — I have carefully examined the " Ideal Music Chart," and have 
noted the progress of the classes where it has been used. I am confident 
that it will prove satisfactory wherever it is introduced. It presents a 
laige number and variety of simple exercises, which are thoroughly 
adapted to primary work. 



CHBOMATIC PITCH IWSTKUMENT 

Patented by C. H. Congdon 

Price, 50 Cents 

It sounds " Do " for ten keys. It saves valuable time often 
used in getting and keeping the pitch. It is necessary to the 
greatest success in any singing exercise. It contains a separate 
German silver reed for every pitch. It does not get out of tune, 
and requires no adjustment. 

Secommended and Used by the Following Well-Known 
Supervisors of Music : 



H. E. Holt, Boston 

O. Blackman Chicago 

N. CoE Stewart, . . Cleveland 
B. JEPSON, .... New Haven 
Mrs. Emma A. Thomas, . Detroit 
Frederick H. Ripley, . Boston 

W. A. Ogden, Toledo 

Joseph Mischka, . . . Buffalo 
O. E. McFaddon, . Minneapolis 
Miss Fannie Arnold, . Omaha 
IvEONARD B. Marshall, Boston 
Mrs. Agnes Cox, . . . Chicago 



Irving Emerson, . . Hartford 

P. C. Hayden Quincy 

F. N. Cottle, .... Chicago 
S. \V. MouNTZ, .... Chicago 
T. P. GiDDiNGS, . . . Oak Park 
P. M. Bach, . Colorado Springs 
Herbert Griggs, . . . Denver 
Jambs W. McI,aughlin, Boston 
Carrie V. Smith, . . . Winona 
Sara I,. Dunning, New York City 
Mary A. Grandy, . Sioux City 
Geo. C. Young, . Salt I,ake City 



BOOKS FOR TEACHERS 



BOOKS FOR TEACHERS 

THE NEW MANUAL AND GUIDE FCH 
TEACHERS 

By J. M. BkRKEY, A.m. 

Cilj' Superintendent Schools, Johnstown, Pa., and late Superintendent 
of Somerset County, Pa. 

131 Pages. Firmi^y Bound in Ci,oth. Price, 50 Cents 

The constantly increasing demand for che former edition 
of the Manuai, and Guide has entirely exhausted the supply 
and made its further publication necessary. In the preparation 
of the new edition, the author has taken the opportunity to 
thoroughly revise the work and to add to it a number of new 
and valuable features. It is no longer a manual for the teacher 
of the elementary district school only, but in its enlarged scope 
and application it will be found equally helpful in all grades 
and departments of the city and town schools. As now 
arranged, its aim is to unify elementary school work and to 
harmonize along essential lines the advanced or high-school 
courses of study. The principle of uniformity, however, 
applies only to fundamental requirements common to all school 
work, while giving the widest possible latitude in the choice of 
text-books, methods of teaching, and adaptation to local con- 
ditions. 



Extracts from Letters Eelative to "The New Manual and Guide for 

Teachers." 



PROF. M. G. BRUMBAUGH, 
A.M., Ph.D., Department of Peda- 
gogy , University of Pennsylvania. — 
"The teachers' Manual and Guide" 
is the best thing for the public 
schools I have yet seen. * * * I 
hope to see it used everywhere. 

SUPT. A. M. HAMMERS, 

Indiana County.— It has been used 
in this county with the most grati- 
fying results. 

SUPT. JOHN W. SNOXE, Leba- 
non County. — Our schools have 
greatly improved by the iutroduc- 
tion of the graded system. 

SUPT. W. F. ZUMBRO, Frank- 
lin County.— -Y shall want one hun- 
dred copies for our teachers. 

SUPT. ELI M. RAPP, Berks 
County. — Every teacher of our 
mixed schools should possess a 
■copy. , 



SUPT. W. A. SNYDER, Clinton 
County. — The Manual is just the 
thing we need for our schools, and 
our teachers are of the same opin- 
ion. 

HON. HENRY HOUCK, Deputy 
State Superintendent, Pa.— It is 
the best I have ever seen. 

SUPT. H. S. WERTZ, Blair 
County.— 1 am pleased with the 
New Manual and shall favor its 
adoption in Blair County. 

SUPT. T. L. GIBSON, Cambria 
County. — The New Manual and 
Guide for Teachers is one of three 
books made the basis ol examina- 
tions in theory of teaching in Cam- 
bria County. 

SUPT. E. E. PRITTS, Somerset 
County.— This manual has done 
much in Somerset County to syste- 
matize the work of ungraded 
schools. 



7?. L, MYERS & CO.'S 



JUKES-EDWARDS 

By A. E. WiNSHiP, Litt.D. 

Editor New England Journal of Education 

12MO. Ci^oTH, 50 Cents. Paper, 25 Cents 

This is one of the greatest educational studies ever pub- 
lished. Every teacher, minister, statesman and philanthropist 
should read it. 

The descendants of Jonathan Edwards are contrasted with 
the infamous "Jukes" family of degenerates. Shiftlessness, 
ignorance and neglect have given to the world a family of 
1,200 paupers, criminals, invalids and imbeciles, costing the State 
in Clime and pauperism $1,250,000; while a high original pur- 
pose, good surroundings and good education have given to the 
world a family of 1,400 of the " world's noblemen." 



DR. EDWARD BROOKS, Phila- 
delphia, Pa. — "Jukes-Edwards" is 
an excellent book, and would prove 
a strong influence for social and 
moral reform wherever it may be 
read. 

DR. SAMUEL HAMILTOFJ, Brad- 
dock, Pa. — The story is one that 
tells and the book ought to be read 
by every parent as well as every 
citizen. 

SUPT. JOHN mORi^OW, Alle- 
gheny City, Pa. — I would like to see 
all our teachers and parents read 
"Jukes-Edwards." 

SUPT. C. A. BABCOCK, Oil City. 
Pa. — It seems to me that it would 
be a good plan to have some cue 
rend a review of "Jukes-Edwards" 
before every Institute in the State — 
or in as many as possible. The 
facts in the book should be known 
by every one. 

SUPT. E. SHACKEY, Reading, 
/to.— I have used " Jukes- Edwards " 
in mj Normal Class, and i would 
be g ad to see a copy of it in the 
hands of every teacher. 

From THE PJCAYUME, New 

Orleans, La. — The moral is obvious 
and it is emphatically asserted. 

From THE ARGOl^AUT, San 

Francisco, Cal. — Forcible argu- 
ments for mental and moral train- 
ing. 



From THE HEIDELBERG 
TEACHER, Philadelphia, Pa.— One 
of the most intensely interesting 
books we have ever read, setting 
forth the constructive force of train- 
ing and environment and the de- 
structive force of idleness and vul- 
garity. The Jukes family offers a 
good illustration of degeneracy, 
while a study of the Edwards 
family presents a cheery, comfort- 
ing and convincing contrast. The 
biographical details given add 
attractiveness and value to the book 
that cannot fail to inspire numer- 
ous sermons and abundant food for 
thought to parents. 

LUCiA AMES MEAD, in Boston 
Transcript — Never was there more 
conclusive evidence of the results 
of early nurture in virtue than in 
the 1,400 descendants of J( nathan 
Edwards. * * * * Not only have 
these cost the State nothin§^ beyond 
their public school training, but 
their contribution to American life 
has been great and continuous. 

From THE CHRiSTLAN AD¥0. 
CATE. — He gives the maxims by 
which the famous divine (Jonathan 
Edv/ards) shaped his life, relates 
his manner of training his eleven 
children, and shows a genealogy 
without the name of a single de- 
generate (and but one that needs 
an apology, Aaron Burr). 

From THE RELIGIOUS TELE- 
SCOPE, Dayton, Ohio.— * * * 
The book should be read by ever^'- 
minister, teacher, and parent. 



BOOKS FOR TEACHERS 



A NEW LIFE IN EDUCATION 

By Prof. Fi^etcher Durei^l, Ph.D. 

Size, ismo. 288 Pages. Bound in L/Inen. Price, 90 Cen^ss 

This is a comprehensive and vigorous work, covering not 
only intellectual education, but physical, moral and religious 
education. Hence, no instructor in any portion of the wi e 
field of education can read the book without gaining new ideas 
to expand his mind and increase his teaching power. Professor 
Durell has given years of study to the educational methods in 
this country and abroad, and has lectured upon the subject to 
college and other students. His work is that of an experienced 
educator — a vSystematic, thorough and logic consideration of 
advanced ideas and historical principles. The results of schol- 
arly and scientific study are applied to current educational 
problems, too often passed over with scant attention. This 
work will be found heipful and inspiring to the conscientious 
educator. 

THE AnflERJC&fJ MATHSMAT- | WEW YORK INDEPEMOENT.— 

fCAL MONTHLY. —It is written in It deserved a first prize, and it de- 
an easy, clear and fluent style, and serves what is far better than that, 
so fascinating that it is difficult to and far more difficult to win, the 
lay it down until you have com- widest possible T'eadiiig. * * * We 
pleted it. It is one of those pure, wish every teacher and every boy 
wholesome books that deserve to or girl in the country knew b}^ 
have a wide circulation. It should heart the chapters ou Organiza- 
be placed in the hands of every tion and Exactness," " The Will," 
teacher and pupil. and "A New Body," 

PINAL EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 

PAMPHI.ET Form. 22 to 64 Pages. Price, 10 Cents 

These are questions given to the junior and senior classes 
of the Pennsylvania State Normal Schools by the State Examin- 
ing Boards for the year 1901. The questions are all answered 
by special teachers of the various subjects. There are no better 
question books for students preparing to teach, and for supple- 
mentary work in the class room. They are bound in pamphlet 
form, each pamphlet containing from 22 to 64 pages. The 
following are now (April i, 1902) ready: 

(i) Arithmetic ; (2) English Grammar ; (3) United States 
and General History ; (4) Physiology and Physics ; (5) Geog- 
raphy and Civil Government; (6) Rhetoric and Literature;; 
C7; Professional Studies — Psychology, History of Kducationf. 
Methods and Management. Others in preparation. 
Price, 10 cents each. 



PENMANSHIP 

PMNMANSHIP 

THE NEW IDEAL COPY BOOKS 

By Hugh C. I/AUGhi,in, A. M. 

High School for Boys and Girls, New York City 

Numbers i to 6, 75 Cents per Dozen 



In learning to write, the use of the eye is as important as 
that of the hand. Through the eye, the brain must picture the 
forms of letters before the 
hand can be trained to write 
ihem. Whatever interferes 
with, the eye in making 
quick and accurate mental 
pictures of the letter forms 
impedes the progress of the 
hand in learning to wiite. 

In the New Ideal Copy 
Books, the author has 
enabled the young pupil 
to concentrate his mental 
vision upon the copies with- 
out having his perception 
confused by surrounding 
figures, printed words, 
unnecessary raled lines, etc. 
In this way, distinct impres- 
sions of the letter forms 
to be copied are made and 
the automatic movement of 
the hand and arm is, consequently, more readily acquired. 

No explanation is any longer expected for preferring the 
vertical system of writing. It would seem foolish to oppose that 
which is more legible, occupies less space, and has won its 
claim to rapidity. The adoption of vertical forms does not 
necessitate the abandonment of grace and beauty. Hence in 
selecting letter forms for the New Ideal Copy Books, the 
author's aim has been to secure, first, simplicity and utility, 
and next, grace and beauty ; and in no case has he sacrificed 
the former for the latter. The author being a classical scholar 
as well as a practical penman, his copies are also a collection 
of literary gems. 

The New Ideal Copy Books have been adopted for exclu- 
sive use in a number of counties in Iowa and Maryland and in 
a large number of townships and towns in Pennsylvania 




Prof. Hugh C. I^aughlin. 



m 



